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Editorial: Xbox Indie Games Round-Up, Vol. 4http://lusipurr.com/2015/03/03/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-4/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/03/03/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-4/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:00:56 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12561Whatever. Who cares. Another Xbox Live Indie Games Round-Up. Read it at your own risk, FRIENDS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!]]>No. Please, do not make me do it again, Lusipurr! I cannot handle anymore Xbox Live Indie games! Stop! STOP! Fine, just put the puppy down safely. As always, these “reviews” are written 100% biased and without actually playing the games in question. Enjoy so the puppy lives.

Finally. Finally the epic Zombie Hunter franchise ends and all its many fans are treated with an ending to its intense story. A story of love, violence, sex, and betrayal. Oh, and garbage. I almost forgot about garbage. One of the amazing things about this game is that there are apparently three other games that came previously. The first ones were so popular the developer decided to make three more. Three more piles of crap to throw on the ever-growing pile of crap known as XBox Live Indie Games. Apparently in this reality EVERY zombie in the world is originating out of a few buildings in a certain city. Last I checked that is not how zombies work. Zombies do not reproduce like a normal human, but what do I know? I am just a lowly writer being forced to research these games or else Lusipurr kills a puppy. Poor puppy. Oh, and I also hate this whole zombie fad with a passion. Zombies, like vampires, needs to go away.

Garbage Factor: Dawn of the Crap/3Age of Developer: The obsession with zombies breaks the walls of generations, so it could be any age.Development Time: Who cares? Seriously. Who cares?

Apparently Billy’s ‘job’ is to float around while some overweight guy in a sweatsuit stares at him.

Ever want to play a game where you just push objects on a conveyor belt? Want to play game that is basically just somebody’s every-day job? I sure as heck do not! I have no clue why the developer of this actually made the game, but I have a feeling it is because he or she is legally insane. Especially since Billy’s head is so huge. Seriously, look at that thing. You could see that thing from outer space if Billy was under water. What makes matters worse is that Billy’s head is being threatened by some bald man with a tiny head. Is he angry at Billy because he has a tiny head? Is he angry at Billy because he is bald? Is he angry at Billy because he has to wear a garish bright green shirt? Maybe he is actually Billy and his job is to attack Billy. The world may never know the answers to these questions, as I am never going to play this game.

Garbage Factor: One Giant Head for Mankind/3Age of Developer: For a head that giant? Like 12. Max.Development Time: Probably like two hours to program the game and a year to make sure Billy’s head physics are realistic.

I think the best part of this game is that the house is supposedly haunted, but it looks like the house was built like two years ago. As we all know that is NOT enough time for a proper ghost to haunt a house. These things take time. There are forms and regulations poltergeists have to go through. At least, that is what Beetlejuice taught me. Speaking of which, anyone else excited for the sequel that was recently announced? I know the first one is one of my favorite movies, and it looks like a majority of the cast and creators are coming back for the sequel. Oh, whoops. I am supposed to be talking about this craptastic game. Who cares. It is garbage and so is the rest of XBox Live Indie Games.

Garbage Factor: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice/3Age of Developer: Lives at home. Still owns teddy bears. 15.Development Time: An hour to take the pictures, 30 minutes to awkwardly explain what he is doing to mom and dad, and five minutes to write the spooky, scary story. BOO!!!!

On 14 June, 2007, Kurt Waldheim, Austrian politician and former Secretary-General of the United Nations, died at the age of eighty-eight. In his youth, during the Second World War, Waldheim had served as an intelligence officer in the Wehrmacht. Despite this (or, perhaps, because of it), Waldheim was elected President of Austria, in which position he served from 1986 until 1992. Never once, in all that time, did he play Eternal Sonata–for Waldheim, fortunate man that he was, died on the very day that Eternal Sonata was released.. He went to his grave blissfully unaware of the threat posed to humanity by tri-Crescendo and Namco Bandai. Today, we may consider that Waldheim was the last man able to die in a state of contentment about the future.

Several months later, on 16 September, 2007, in a small, isolated nation called The United States of America, another man lay dying. He had not heard that Eternal Sonata was to come out the very next day; the whispers of a terror from beyond the western sea had not yet reached his ears. As he breathed his last, his soul separated from his body. In that instant, all the hopes and fears of boyhood; all the dreams and aspirations of adolescence; all the successes and goals of manhood spun through the fading mind, and the soul, throughout mortality striving for reunion with its maker, fulfilled at last its divine purpose. The author Robert Jordan was fifty-eight years old, and left behind a significant and enduring literary output, absolutely none of which was about Frederic Chopin.

Frederic Chopin

According to the Lusipurr.com Internet Database, Frederic Francois Chopin, born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading musicians of his era, whose “poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation.” Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed many of his works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of twenty, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.

At the age of twenty-one he settled in Paris. Thereafter, during the last eighteen years of his life, he gave only some thirty public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and teaching piano, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann. In 1835 he obtained French citizenship. After a failed engagement to a Polish girl, from 1837 to 1847 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with Sand in 1838–39 was one of his most productive periods of composition. In his last years, he was financially supported by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. Through most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health. He died in Paris in 1849, probably of tuberculosis.

Frederic Chopin, in Eternal Sonata

According to Eternal Sonata, Frederic Chopin is a dandy doppleganger for Isambard Kingdom Brunel. His beautiful sister commands so much sway in the artistic community that she has imported Samuel Langhorne Clemens–Mark Twain–to serve as her brother’s physician. George Sand, Chopin’s devoted love interest, is optimistically imagined as only relatively dowdy as she manages Chopin’s affairs (whilst he reclines, blissfully unconscious, on an ornate four-poster). In one of the many, interminable sololiquies rendered by this masque of idiots, Twain suggests that Chopin is not dreaming–and yet, in despite of this postulation, the game trundles on with all of the dexterity that one might expect of a chronically tubercular patient. Meanwhile, Twain lumbers about, exclaiming turgid drivvel possessing none of the verve found in his published works; Chopin’s sister sits primly on a settee, from which she emotionlessly ruminates on the nature of existence; and George Sand strides about hither and yon, speaking her mind with a freewheeling abandon whilst conveying absolutely nothing whatsoever. The great mystery is not whether Chopin is dreaming, but who will die first and how: will it be Chopin, in the bedroom, with the tuberculosis; or will it be the reader, in the front room, of boredom?

Within the world of dreams (if Chopin is, in fact, dreaming–but is he dreaming? Is a butterfly dreaming of him? Is he dreaming of a butterly? So deep! So profound! Existentialism through the mind of a fourteen-year-old booby!) a Nietzschean exercise in nihilism is taking place. Frederic asserts that he is dreaming–that all of the characters before him (and the player) are merely constructs of his mind. This the characters roundly dispute, and–if Chopin really is(!?) dreaming them into existence–the biggest mystery of all is why he does not choose to dream up something more imaginative or compelling than a bunch of identical anime-dolls straight off the tri-Cresendo assembly line, each packaged so as to declaim solipsistic babblings that would bring a blush to the cheeks of a first-week freshman in a 100-level philosophy course.

BUT *IS* HE DREAMING!?(!?(!(?)))

And there is the rub, for this is the game’s monumental conceit–greater than its absurd reimaginings of style and appearance; greater than its wrangling with history and established fact; greater even than its clumsy, thumbless groping at entry-level existentialism–no, the greatest conceit of all is that Chopin the musical prodigy, renowned in his time and at every moment since, author of some of the most delicate and inventive works ever composed for the piano: waltzes, mazurkas, scherzi, preludes, and sonatae, Chopin the undisputed creative genius can invent nothing better than a series of cookie-cutter mouthpieces for the bilious mouth-farting of low-rent Japanese anime producers. To be certain, experienced gamers and anime fans have seen and heard it all before–the laboured expostulations on the nature of existence, the ponderous, navel-gazing pseudo-philosophy–but Eternal Sonata is the indisputable ne plus ultra of the form.

Beat: “I’m really gonna teach you a lesson!”

But let us return to the dream world–if, indeed, we are not already dreaming–where we can find a cast of characters whose names are all drawn directly from musical terminology. One can almost imagine the self-satisfied sniggering of the developers, high on their own farts, as they drafted up plans for Polka, Beat, and Allegretto; for the lands of Baroque and Forte; for Prince Crescendo and Fort Fermata (the last particularly appropriate as its movement mechanic quickly overstays its welcome). All of them are uninspiringly voice-acted, with the usual in-battle shouting that gamers have come to loathe. “How pitiful! You soulless creatures!” Chopin shouts, again and again, without variation. “Sacred Signature!” The staggered player, agape on his couch, can only gawp at the needless lip-flapping. “Tuberculosis, hurry!” he shouts in rejoinder, hoping to encourage a faster end to the experience–but the game, uncaring, hears him not.

The battles themselves proceed in the usual sort of porridge-y tri-Crescendo way: there is a move timer, a combo meter, and light and dark areas of the battlefield, each of which result in a different finishing move for the playable characters. –And that is the whole of it, really. Bosses have a lot of hitpoints and most of the significant fights seem designed to wear down the player’s resolve rather than the characters’ life totals. These are often followed by lengthy cutscenes: in one memorable instance, this reviewer left the couch at the beginning of a cutscene. After loading laundry, making dinner, emptying the dishwasher, eating dinner, and loading the dishwasher again, this reviewer returned to the couch only to find that the cutscene was still progressing apace, with very many observances about whether anything unreal exists.

Count Waltz

As for the storyline, it may be dispensed with quickly: Floral Powder and Mineral Powder factor in significantly; the former is good, the latter bad, in the usual bifurcative way that the natural world is set against the artificial. The bad count (Waltz) and principality (Forte) push Mineral Powder, which turns people into monsters. The good prince (Crescendo) and kingdom (Baroque) prefer the eco-friendly Floral Powder, which pleases Polka (a flower seller) no end. The game’s descent into madness rolls along, gathering speed as the plot leaps dizzyingly from one absurd point to the next even more absurd point. After falling into the sea and escaping pirates (the party are woefully ill-fortuned), they at last confront Count Waltz who escapes through a magical portal. The party dutifully follows him to the (surprisingly accessible) underworld, “Elegy of the Moon” (haunted by the deceased victims of Mineral Powder), where he escapes again.

What follows next is unclear to this reviewer, despite the fact that he has now played through the final segment of the game twice–both on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. For the sake of brevity, the Lusipurr.com Internet Database says:

The party advances past Xylophone Tower and the Noise Dunes to Double Reed Tower, where Legato [Count Waltz’s henchman] made another portal. There, the party defeats them and finally fight [Frederic] Chopin as the final antagonist, for him to complete his destiny. Realizing that it is the only way to save the world, Polka jumps off a cliff and is reborn younger, but then becomes older again and embraces Allegretto. Finally, back in the real world, Chopin’s spirit rises out of his body and he plays his piano one last time, in a blooming sea of nocturnal flowers ‘Heaven’s Mirror’, composing a song that was inspired by Polka. [Emphasis added.]

This reviewer defies our readers to find something more staggeringly idiotic in a game made by a respected, experienced, practised developer. In addition, this reviewer submits that this is the only ending to a game which is worse than that found in the otherwise similarly lamentable Final Fantasy X.

So deep!

The music is an area where–all else failing–it would be reasonable to expect Eternal Sonata to deliver satisfaction. After all, it is a game centred (at least in principle) upon one of the most famous composers ever to have graced the Euterpean arts. And, indeed, when the game chooses to present the music of Chopin, it does this quite well: the recordings are of a very good if not outright exceptional quality, with all of the selections presented in 5.1 surround sound. Moreover, and most critically, the quality of Stanislav Bunin’s performance is exceptional in places and very good in others–the Etudes in particular demonstrate a profoundly developed lyrical technique on the part of the performer. But, aggravatingly, these very few moments in the game–easily and without contest the best part of the entire Eternal Sonata experience–are delivered as mere vignettes: they are moments not of gameplay, but of historical presentation, accompanied by brief

So profound!

snippets of Chopin history utterly disconnected from what has been taking place within the world of the game. Here is yet another opportunity squandered, for had the developers attended more carefully to the music, they could have created a game that would allow Chopin’s compositional genius to speak for him–to accent the action of the gameplay; to serve real, narrative purpose within the soundtrack of the game itself. But, alas, just as the game world of Eternal Sonata is nothing so much as a a farcical caricature of the real–the existentialist universe as seen in a carnival fun house mirror–so too is Motoi Sakuraba’s un-Chopin-like and forgettable soundtrack but the unsophsticated and juvenile imitation of real compositional brilliance–an inescapable inferiority shown all to the worse by its unfavourable juxtaposition alongside the works of a real master like Chopin, presented below:

The stirring and vivacious Polonaise in Ab, Op. 53 of Chopin is followed–in what must be the ultimate damp squib—by the enthusiastically dull strains of some saccharine, string-infused Sakuraba selection, served up for the savory delectation of the suitably tin-eared listener. Philistines rejoice! Sakuraba has turned out yet another drosswork–the perfect background music for a life of no consequence!

“It’s the stupidest tea party I ever was at in all my life!”

At the end of it all, Eternal Sonata is a very bad game. But it is not–it must now be asserted–the worst game ever made, nor could it ever realistically aspire to reach such lofty heights and occupy a position alongside games like Deadly Towers and Fable. As the work of nothing more nor less than a team of over-practised amateurs, Eternal Sonata can never rise above its own firmly-established mediocrity to be anything more than a footnote in the annals of game reception. Where Chopin was brilliant–where he caught the world by the ear and inscribed his name upon history through works of genius and beauty–the developers of Eternal Sonata have instead been mediocre, subpar, uninspired, and workaday. Sakuraba’s stringy, forgettable earbilge is, in many ways, the perfect audio accompaniment to the uninvested blathering of the Wednesdayish voice actors; to the unsophisticed pseudophilosophical musings of the giddy-with-their-own-brilliance writers; and to the uninventive battle system, the development of which is purely a tool by which the developers hoped to force the increasingly apathetic player to look ever-more-closely at the mind-numbing piffle playing out on the screen.

A work of stunning mediocrity, more than anything else Eternal Sonata is a missed opportunity. Had the developers hearkened to the oeuvre of their ostensible subject, they could have created a game which would have allowed Chopin’s genius to speak for him. Instead, the developers chose to let their writers speak for Chopin. The result is not an “Eternal Sonata”, but rather a passing, fleeting “Variation on a Theme of Disappointment”.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/03/02/feature-review-eternal-sonata/feed/2TSM Episode 313: Lusipurr’s Pizza Partyhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/03/02/tsm-episode-313-lusipurrs-pizza-party/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/03/02/tsm-episode-313-lusipurrs-pizza-party/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 05:00:46 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12541In an effort to prevent Lusipurr enjoying his pizza, SiliconNooB harasses him with constant gibberings and dribblings of a news- and cricket-related nature. Then, adding insult to the injury, Bup arrives on the scene, necessitating even more shouting.]]>

In an effort to prevent Lusipurr enjoying his pizza, SiliconNooB harasses him with constant gibberings and dribblings of a news- and cricket-related nature. Then, adding insult to the injury, Bup arrives on the scene, necessitating even more shouting.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/03/02/tsm-episode-313-lusipurrs-pizza-party/feed/4News: Sony’s New Year Resolutionhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/28/news-sonys-new-year-resolution/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/28/news-sonys-new-year-resolution/#commentsSat, 28 Feb 2015 17:16:31 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12537Resolution cited as top reason to buy a PS4, PS4 makes the money - all of it -, and Bathesda behave like slimey cunts in the news of the week! ]]>

The bananas have steered Nintendo false!

Resolution Listed as #1 Reason for PS4 Eighth Generation Dominance

A study conducted by Nielson has this week revealed the top five reasons for owning a current generation console, as cited by owners of that console. Predictably, the top reason for owning a PS4 was given as resolution, which roughly translates into practical terms as the system having been chosen due to its tendency to provide superior ports to the Xbone. The second most common reason given for owning a PS4 was for the system’s functionality as a Blu-ray player, which seems a little odd given the fact that these days there are far cheaper options for Blu-ray playback, not least of which is the PS3. The third most common reason for PS4 ownership was for the system’s burgeoning game library, which next month is set to be bolstered by the highly anticipated console exclusive, Bloodborne. The fourth most common reason listed for PS4 ownership was faster processing power, a quality which [in terms of consoles] the PS4 has in spades, while the fifth most common reason given was simply that the PS4 is what the family wanted. These last two factors really sum up exactly why the PS4 is dominating the Xbone and Wii U to such an extent – it is the most technically proficient machine of the three, while also being a crowd pleaser among families. It is this wide base of appeal which continues to drive the PS4’s sales forward in 2015.

Xbone owners are corporate thralls, case in point the number one reason given for Xbone ownership among its installbase was brand. The second most cited feature for Xbone ownership harkens back to the days of forced Kinect, being as it is innovative features. The third most common feature cited was faster processing power, which the Xbone at least possesses in relation to the seventh generation consoles and Wii U, while the fourth most commonly cited feature was because of its exclusive games and content, a point which one would have though would place higher on the list. Perhaps the decreasing relevance of console exclusives to the Xbone is simply an indication that Halo has lost a certain degree of mind-share in the face of annualised releases of Call of Duty and Battlefield. Finally, the fifth most cited feature leading to Xbone ownership is an admittedly a great reason to have given: fun factor.

Fun factor might have been of relatively high importance to Xbone owners, yet it is of paramount importance to Wii U owners, placing as the number one reason that Wii U owners made their purchase decision. It is not hard to see why this is the case given that the Wii U’s library is the most traditionally gamey of the three consoles, and is stocked with titles that focus on fun while not putting on airs. The second most cited reason for Wii U ownership is an obvious one: the console is better for kids, while the third most cited reason is a bit of an odd one: price and value. Granted, the Wii U is the cheapest of the three consoles, but not by that much. The console features ancient hardware at a premium price, and Nintendo is notorious for cheaping out in any way they can. As such, the Wii U seems to offer significantly less value to gamers than even the Xbone. The fourth most common reason given for Wii U ownership is backwards compatibility, marking it as an important feature, at least to the Wii U’s anemic installbase. No doubt the oracular bananas will look at this statistic and determine that Nintendo’s next system requires Wii U backwards compatibility at any cost! Finally, the fifth most cited reason for Wii U ownership is for exclusive games and content. It is quite puzzling that the importance of Wii U exclusives should place so lowly on the list, though perhaps Nintendo owners have grown so accustomed to having vastly superior console exclusives in comparison to the competition that they take it for granted to an extent, making them less inclined to scrap in the console exclusive trenches with PS4 and Xbone owners.

All the money are belong to Sony.

Sony Platforms Lead the Market in worldwide Digital Revenue

When looking at the same Nielson study as seen above, it is possible to see that both the Wii U and Xbone installbases are largely derived from their respective seventh generation predecessor consoles, whereas the PS4’s installbase is comprised of a fair chunk of gamers that Sony has been able to wean away from Nintendo and Microsoft consoles. The demography of Microsoft and Nintendo users remains relatively stale, with 76 percent of Xbone owners having previously owned a 360, and 86 percent of Wii U owners having owned a Wii. Put another way, Microsoft has only managed to attract 24 percent [or roughly a quarter] of [presumably] first time Xbox owners to their camp, while just a meager 14 percent of the Wii U’s userbase is comprised of fresh blood. By contrast the PS4 enjoys a healthy mix of first time owners and returning Playstation customers, with 66 percent of the userbase comprised of PS3 owners, and 34 percent of the userbase comprised of people which [presumably] belonged to Sony’s competitors during the seventh console generation.

The effect that Sony’s ascendency is having on the gaming landscape has already been making itself felt in the digital marketplace, with the PS4 pulling out well ahead of its console competitors. During January of this year 1.1 billion dollars was spent on digital games in the global market, of this 263 million dollars was generated by traditional console hardware. When looking at the top ten best performing digital titles of January, the PS4 can be seen to rake in a massive 43 percent of their global revenue, while the Playstation family as a whole [including the PS3 and Vita] can be seen to accrue a whopping 63 percent of global revenue, leaving Nintendo and Microsoft to fight over scraps.

Because people are going to confuse a tower defense game with this bullshit!

Bethesda Has Returned to Patent Trolling

With the eighth console generation in full swing one would have thought that Bethesda would be busy developing one of their janky, bug-filled open world messes – but apparently not. Much like irredeemable clowns such as King and Tim Langdell, Bethesda sincerely believes that they own the exclusive rights to words in the English language. Previously we have seen that when Bethesda were not busy suing Oculus Rift on account of sour grapes, they were equally committed to suing Mojang for having the audacity to use the word ‘scrolls’ in their game’s title. While Notch was more than wealthy enough to take a stand against such absurdity, this week has seen the sad results of what happens when the arseholes at Bethesda elect to ride rough-shod over a real indy developer, and the results look a lot like rape.

“Congratulations Bethesda. You won. You beat us. You showed us who’s boss.”

These were the words of Xreal founder, Howard Marks, who until this week had been working on a mobile tower defense game called Fortress Fallout. Sadly for Marks, Bethesda feel that they own the exclusive rights to use the word ‘fallout’ from now until the end of time, and that anybody wishing to use this perfectly commonplace word in the English language can just choke on their greasy legal cock. In a just world this sort of nonsense would be laughed out of court, yet in the imperfect world in which we live little developers like Xreal simply do not have enough fiscal resources to be able to see off this baseless bullying in the legal arena. Now they had better just hope that they do not get sued by Square Enix for the name Xreal looking too much like Xenogears!

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/28/news-sonys-new-year-resolution/feed/7Editorial: The Trailershttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/27/editorial-the-trailers/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/27/editorial-the-trailers/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 17:00:54 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12532Given that Java has fallen woefully behind the rest in terms of owning new systems, he spends more time watching video game trailers than actually playing the games...save for Bravely Default. However, he will not be talking BD this week. Trailers it is!]]>

It took a lot for me to not talk about Bravely Default this week.

I have a confession to make; I am a sucker for a game trailer. One of the pleasures I get out of life directly results from ignoring my television unless a game is being played on it. Because of this, every once in awhile, I will just set sail on the Internet’s vast ocean of videos and watch game trailers without it being forced upon me, often with no intention to ever play the game.

That probably sounds quite odd. The trailer, after all, is the keystone of the ersatz Rome the Hype Machine builds, calling all gamers to reside within its walls based on the hope that this game and none other will finally be the euphoric utopia they all deserve. Well, okay, it is fair to say I am over-stating things (not really). I do not exactly like the Hype Machine, but I can understand it from a certain point of view. If one can not augment the attractiveness of a product in advertising, then one will likely not create the market needed to make it a sustainable venture.

With game trailers, it is (or at least should be) common knowledge that actual gameplay footage is a shrinking addition, perhaps more of an afterthought, when it comes to the big budget titles. Some indie developers leave out gameplay, as well. Just to be clear, this is not a jab at the omission, but instead a note of the decision in making the ad. To be honest, I actually appreciate it more often than not because, as I stated, I enjoy watching them for their own sake. I think of it as a little movie, and some of these folks really know how to tell a story, or at the very least jump start one in the few minutes they are given.

I wish the kids in my neighborhood did wholesome things like this.

Before I start rambling on about a few I have watched recently, and some of my favorites, I should probably preface this by saying that I have no film experience. I am not here to apply the Laws of Aesthetics or whatever cinema buffs call them, so do not read on expecting some higher level shits given, for I have none to offer. My enjoyment of them is based solely on the fact that they made me want to know more about either the characters or the story, and given that I tend to get sucked in to a well-woven tale, it should come as a surprise that I am taking a break from heavily petting Bravely Default to chatter on about such things.

I recently had the pleasure of catching the trailer for Silence: The Whispered World 2. I have not played the first game, nor did I do any research on it or the sequel at all in the interest of being able to retain how the trailer purchased a small parcel of land in some obscure cockle of my heart and proceeded to build a little house there.

The opening with a softly falling snow and ambiguous choral voices immediately set me up for the idea that some sort of innocence is about to be lost. The air raid siren bellowing over a sleepy town wastes no time in confirming that idea, and despite the one crying wolf every few Saturdays near my house, the siren’s warning still means dire things. As always, the play of children is interrupted by the very adult concept of war, and the smile on a falling snowman’s head was not lost on me as it morphed into a frown, despite the physics being questionable. The run to the bunker only seconds before the planes show up with the bombs is something that never seems to lose its power as an image, but in this case it may be overshadowed by a hand then a flash. Once the children are in the bunker, it appears someone else tries to enter and is caught in the inferno that has become the outside. All this, of course, rings a solemn bell because it is something that actually happens in the real world, and should that ever fail to stir emotion, I would say that said world is in terrible trouble.

Sir, I forcefully posit that my mustache is glory in the raw!

While I do consider the trailer for Silence to be rather powerful because it plays heavily on events of humanity’s past and present, I turn to The Order: 1886 which evokes a far different side of me, namely the one that thought The Matrix was the best film that would ever be made. I am not ashamed to admit that sometimes I like a game (or movie, I guess) with lots of guns and explosions.

That being said, I do still need to be interested in the story, and The Order‘s trailer did that for me while even including what looks like that rare gem of actual gameplay and not just cinematic cherries. Sure, in a typical American fashion, I am sold on dialogue delivered in any accent different from my own, but the snippets in the trailer serve raise my curiosity about the story. The rebels appear to have teamed up with the monsters? Overbearing figure head with a beard questioning a subordinate player character? Those are okay things, but doing all that in the past as opposed to some science fiction future sounds pretty interesting, though, I have been disappointed before. Regardless if I actually end up playing The Order, the trailer did get some action juices flowing, even with the tired bullet-timey combat shots. With what the trailer gives me, I would definitely commit to reading the book, if such a thing existed, just to see where the story goes.

No, guys, you’re supposed to be pulling down THAT guy’s statue.

Once in awhile, a trailer comes along that does not really get my blood pumping or make demands of my emotions, and just presents me with something I think is particularly cool to watch. I turn now to an old favorite of mine, the trailer for Fable 3, a game which I did actually play and do not recall ever finishing. I suppose that speaks to the game not being very memorable. In fact, I think I may have found it tedious, which explains why the hours spent have been shoved in some dark closet of my mind. At any rate, I still like the trailer, and I think the Black Angels tune has a lot to do with it because the visuals have been carefully placed to augment the slow rolling dread conveyed by the music. I may not have loved the game, but I can appreciate this the same way I used to replay a well made music video back when MTV actually played music videos.

So, we come to that time where I ask, and you answer, and we share laughs and lambastes to be forever immortalized in the Lusipurr.com archives. Have you got a game trailer that just made you go “wow,” or perhaps even “hmm?” What aspects would convince you to try the game in the first place? What would cause you to adorn your viewing screen of choice with a fist-sized hole?

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/27/editorial-the-trailers/feed/4Editorial: Change the Channelhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/26/editorial-change-the-channel/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/26/editorial-change-the-channel/#commentsThu, 26 Feb 2015 17:00:56 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12527Mel discusses episodic game releases this week, both their ups and downs. Adopting a release schedule like this could take off with more publishers as it meets success with others, but will it always be that way? Weigh in on Mel's prognosis!]]>

A Minecraft Telltale game would presents itself with some puzzling possibilities.

A fishy wind is blowing across Lcom these days, readers. Our original General Editor and Co-Founder Ethos (of Riddlethos fame*) has vacated his position here to pursue other endeavors on the internet abroad. Our boy is growing up. In his place he has left the position in my placable capable hands. And this is the way of things, fine fellows, not only at our humble website but in other areas of life as well. Why, yes these changes happen within the games industry as well, who would have guess I was going segue into that? As we wave a tear-soaked handkerchief goodbye at our old whatshisname, allow me to reflect on other changes happening all around and rest assured that I have things completely under control. [Note to self: Consider getting things under control]

Where was I? Changes in the games industry, that was it. The changes I mean to discuss this week are ones I predict will see a sharp uptick in the coming months as the results from this low-pressure financial quarter hit the investor meeting PowerPoint slides. They come off the wild success of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, Game of Thrones, and eventually Minecraft: Story Mode. These changes are, of course, episodic release schedules. It should be evident from the kind of games Telltale, the contemporary name in episodic content delivery, has been producing that this system has met with very wide appeal. The intellectual property Telltale combos up with have lately all be widely popular games and TV shows, spun into a story-heavy game that is light on interaction and ripe for “school yard” discussions of individual experiences. And while that dramatic focus on decision making has no doubt been part of the success, the episodic delivery is probably overlooked for its contribution.

The Wolf Among Us utilizes Tellgame Games’ typical cell shaded art style to smooth over the simple character models.

Personally I am of two minds on the delivery system, but I can see why more of the industry is taking notice to the method. With games like Resident Evil: Revelations 2 now taking up the episodic mantle, I would not be surprised to see more examples to follow that reside outside of the typical Telltale-style of game. Games delivered this way seem designed to increase exposure where standalone releases would otherwise be less capable. As has been the case for some time, the games industry enjoys aping other entertainment mediums like movies and TV, and what both of those industries have over videogames is multifaceted exposure. Games have only recently begun to find a good method of profiting again on old releases, but it comes at the cost of backward compatibility and whatever consumer goodwill along with it. TV and movies have initial releases, in theaters or live broadcast, as well as DVD/Blu-ray and premium/network TV releases. Games have one release date, possibly extended by DLC.

Episodic content looks to combat this limitation while keeping the game’s name at the top of websites for a month or more. Many outlets review each episode individually and perhaps also again collectively when the whole season is bundled in a physical format. Review scores and content have an arguable impact on game sales, but awareness unquestionably does. Less important than what the reviews are saying is the fact that the game is being headlined week after week at high traffic sites, keeping awareness up while not really increasing the amount of content needed to be delivered.

Barry Burton gets a chance to star in his own game since 2002.

As well, the content is initially only offered digitally which strips the retail overhead to increase the margin by roughly eight percent, by my math based on retail profits on sixty dollar games of about five dollars. By the end of the season, a physical retail version usually ships, gaining yet more exposure on store shelves as a “New Release” and keeping retail partners satisfied. Combined with Season Passes and Special Editions, the model adds several chances for success to a formerly singular and all-or-nothing release date. It has the added benefit of being consumer friendly (it does not costs them more) and easy to understand.

And in an exercise mostly in speculation I feel a lot of these decisions have come from careful monitoring of player habits. The lengths that people play games for in one sitting and the overall progress people make in a game can all be recorded now on modern consoles (and likely have been for some time on last gen systems) as well as through platforms like Steam. Understanding retention rates is a huge analytical aspect of other modern platforms like YouTube, and I doubt anything is being differently considered for games. In order to make sure games are not over-produced or under-produced, episodic content can hedge that bet by segmenting the experience into a familiar TV-style structure.

My issues and concerns with a rise in this method are nagging, however. In order to fit an episodic structure, games that need not be cut up will likely be broken apart to fit this model. I look at the previously mentioned Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and wonder what about that game required it to be episodic beside a Capcom executive giving the order. As clear and as multifaceted as it is, it will begin to work against publishers if they arbitrarily make games into episodes across several installments instead of one single story. The impact might be limited, however, as consumers could wait to buy the final bundle but constraint is rarely counted on as the better part of consumerism and neither is compromise in the face of instant gratification. Finally, the episodic structure might begin to ring anachronistic, even regressive, to people now increasingly used to Netflix-style binge watching of whole TV seasons. As games begin to copy the a page from TV, Netflix is actively ripping the pages up. The two ideas do not exactly mesh in the way mainstream gamers and Netflix users most certainly do.

So that will wrap up my little market analysis on the subject of episodic games. So far I have yet to be too greatly benefited or annoyed by the practice. I appreciate the various Telltale games, but do not particularly enjoy them. I was put off by the original RE: Revelations and the second looks to be more of the same, episodes notwithstanding. So let me know if you have a stronger opinion on the practice or if you think any of my armchair analysis is bunk (or amazing, I will take “amazing”, too).

*very famous

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/26/editorial-change-the-channel/feed/5Editorial Miscellany: Transitionhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/25/editorial-miscellany-transition/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/25/editorial-miscellany-transition/#commentsWed, 25 Feb 2015 17:00:57 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12525How Ethos was able to drone on about absolutely nothing for almost a thousand words is anybody's guess. Read and respond to his mad rambles, if only to give company to a man whose sanity is dissolving. ]]>

Always watching. Always judging.

There was a time, dear LusiCommer, when my life consisted of cycles that started with hurtling toward a deadline, becoming suffocated yet strangely invigorated by stress, then just completing the project by the time the deadline came along which would move me into a period of being unable to properly process time which would lead me into a period of jubilant carefree silliness which would eventually turn into restlessness which would end up taking up the form of a project which would inevitably create a deadline and as the deadline would come closer, the cycle would begin anew.

This cycle got more and more stretched as I got older and soon the “massive looming deadline” aspect of it sort of disappeared and with it went my sense of urgency. This is not something I really even realized until this past week. It is no secret that I am launching a website project of my own tomorrow (although I will be here another few weeks, dear reader, do not fear!) and this is the first time I have had a hard deadline in quite some time. The closest recent experience I have had to this one was when I released the gameplay trailer for Lusipurr’s Fountain of Perpetual Disappointment and that did not have all the elements of a typical deadline because the development cycle had no firm schedule and ultimately collapsed. It did, however, include the terrifying element of public reaction.

Anyway, the point is that – although I imagine it is quite obvious – my mind is very much in the “suffocated yet strangely invigorated by stress” stage. I went to bed around 6am last night and I am trying not to think about how much needs to get done on the site before it goes live tomorrow. Also, have I played any video games the past week? Let us find out.

Nah, not really

For the first time in a very long time I have been truly too busy for video games. I have a non-game on my phone that I have been returning to for a few days, but that has been acting like a stress ball, and is not even worthy of mention by name. I suppose there was all the video from the Final Fantasy XV demo, but I have not watched it and am fine with that. I am extremely excited for the game and think it will be a fascinating play, whether it is amazing, terrible, or – most likely – something complicated and hard to define in between. Like many games.

So, crap, how am I going to fill this Editorial Miscellany? I guess I played about forty minutes of Twilight Princess but even I have some Zelda exhaustion, so I would rather just wait to talk about the Wii U one when there is more information. Although, because it is pretty much the one video game I played this week, I suppose I should say something.

Twilight Princess

Whatever.

I will say more in the alt text than I did in the main text.

Ugh, now we are back to this

I did not have a lot to say about Twilight Princess. I suppose I was playing Stick of Truth a few weeks ago and never really talked about it, but I do not have a lot to say about that game either. Not now, anyway, I am too removed from it. Well here, I just remembered something I can talk about.

Bloodborne development video

This video produced by IGN was such a treat to watch to see how these developers think about game creation. It is starting to make more and more sense to me that video game sequels should be developed this way. Like with Final Fantasy and – to a lesser extent – Zelda, there seems to be great benefit to starting up a world from scratch without too much need to retain characters or design from previous games in the series. I feel like a big reason why Assassin’s Creed got so terrible so quickly was because once they refined the tech-demo nature of the first one, the company stopped thinking about making their games better and instead focused on making the same game over and over again more quickly, while also making the games more bloated in a misguided effort to give the series a sense of gameplay progression.

Bloodborne is not beholden to its predecessors, but it is in their debt and From Software knows both of those facts. Stringently holding onto mechanics or ideas just because they are familiar is lazy and money-oriented.

If they had made more than two games, I might have included Team ICO in the same category as From Software, but I am starting to think that if I were to walk into those offices, I would just see Fumito Ueda cuddled up with a griffin. I imagine the beast would stand up and roar in a protective rage while Ueda-san curled into a tighter ball and whimpered. There is your image of the day.

I guess I played more Sticker Star

But please do not make me talk about it.

Final Thoughts

As I transition to a different website and also a different stage of my reanimated work cycle, I hope you all know how grateful I am to you for always putting up with my antics. I can be loud and brash and opinionated one second and then hopelessly silly the next and everybody here has always gracefully rolled with the punches. I love this website and will absolutely still be around as a reader and a commenter once Lusipurr finally unlocks my ankle-cuffs (I will, after all, still be chained by the waist-cuff). Anyway, does anybody have any wacky stories from the week? Let us hang out in the comments!

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/25/editorial-miscellany-transition/feed/7Editorial: Xbox Indie Games Round-Up, Vol. 3http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/24/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-3/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/24/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-3/#commentsTue, 24 Feb 2015 17:00:52 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12520Wow, how does Bup keep writing these articles?! No, seriously: how does he do it? How does he have so much life force to give each week so he can muster up the strength to write about these crappy games. Someone help him!]]>It is that time of the week again! Time for me to sink even lower into my depression and wonder why I stay alive for another day. Every day is a struggle. ENJOY! As always these “reviews” are made completely biased and without actually playing the games in question.

In this game the player is supposed to get the other players to say a word? Even the game’s description is vague about how the player actually achieves this goal. I cannot tell if the people the player is trying to “prank” know they are playing, or if they are just random Xbox Live users the player is matched up with. I do not even know how trying to trick someone into saying a random word is a “prank.” Nobody even mentions Prince Albert or his can! Kids these days need to learn how to properly prank someone. Actually, instead learn how to make a decent game for me to review. At least then I will have some glimmer of hope in my sad, dark world.

Garbage Factor:Crank Yankers/3Age of Developer:Probably 15. Trust me. 15-year-olds are the WORST at prank calling.Development Time:Probably like a week to think of the HILARIOUS words to “prank” someone with.

Haha, see it is funny because there are naked guys wrestling and they have boners! Hahahaha so funny! Guys! Guys! Did you see all the boners! Can you even believe we fit so many boners into this game! This game could be call Boner Your Boner, am I right? Guys! Did you hear my “boner” joke! I said, “This game should be calling Boner Your Boner!” Haha I am so funny. Boners. Seriously, I do not even know what one would do in this game. I just cannot get past all the boners.

Garbage Factor:Boner/3Age of Developer:Boner years old.Development Time:How long does a boner last? Five hours? That is what the pill says, right?

Hmmm. This looks really familiar. I just cannot place where I have seen this game before. It is almost as if someone took Minecraft and combined it with Call of Duty. Oh, wait. That is EXACTLY what these people did. The whole time I was playing Minecraft I wished that I had guns and the whole time I played Call of Duty I wished that I was building things and exploring caves, so this is perfect for me! Me and anyone who has gone through botched brain surgery! The fact that the “developers” added the Xbox Live avatars makes it even better, because they totally do not match up with the art style at all and do not look out of place whatsoever. This game is NOT dumb as heck at all! Can you sense all the sarcasm in these statements?

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/24/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-3/feed/2TSM Episode 312: People of Walmarthttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/23/tsm-episode-312-people-of-walmart/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/23/tsm-episode-312-people-of-walmart/#commentsMon, 23 Feb 2015 05:00:55 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12515When England goes down to one of the worst defeats in ODI history, SiliconNoob, Imitanis, and Mel rush to console Lusipurr with pictures from Wal*Mart. Traumatised, the Dear Leader takes to his bed. But worse, Scottish defeats loom just around the corner.]]>

When England goes down to one of the worst defeats in ODI history, SiliconNoob, Imitanis, and Mel rush to console Lusipurr with pictures from Wal*Mart. Traumatised, the Dear Leader takes to his bed. But worse, Scottish defeats loom just around the corner.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/23/tsm-episode-312-people-of-walmart/feed/22News: Turds of a Featherhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/21/news-turds-of-a-feather/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/21/news-turds-of-a-feather/#commentsSat, 21 Feb 2015 17:06:16 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12509More interesting details are revealed about Final Fantasy XV, tri-Ace gets sold out for mobile phone development, and Tim Schafer sticks up for fellow crook, Peter Molyneux, in the news of the week! ]]>

At this point saying the glass is half empty would be a kindness.

Final Fantasy XV Suicide Watch

With one month to go until the impending release of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, information pertaining to the Episode Duscae demo has been filtering onto the internets in a particularly noteworthy volume this week. The demo will be available an hour after Final Fantasy Type-0 goes on sale, and is set to last [by Square Enix estimates] a full three hours if the player simply sticks to storyline objectives. The premise of the demo is that the party’s car has broken down, and they need to earn enough money to fix it – either by selling treasure to shops, or by defeating Smoke Eye, a particularly large Behemoth that happens to be blind in one eye. The demo will feature a save system, so players need not finish it all in one sitting. Once players have completed the storyline of the demo, certain other points of interest will then unlock to provide players with some further post demo amusement. Despite featuring a save system, savefiles will not be directly transferable into the full game – though Square Enix are thinking of providing an in-game bonus for anyone with an Episode Duscae savefile on their system.

One point of interest which was readily remarked upon when the final trailer for Final Fantasy Type-0 / Episode Duscae hit the internet, is the fact that the graphics appear to have received a pretty significant downgrade compared to previously released media. The game’s previous meticulous rendering of lush tufts of grass now appear to be muddy and sparse, while the game’s LoD [level of detail] transition now seems much more aggressive, making middle-distance scenery look quite rough. It is possible that the game’s LoD problems are being exacerbated by the demo’s resolution, as Tabata has confirmed that the team has been unable to hit their goal of a 1080p resolution in time for the release of Episode Duscae. That said, the demo still clearly exhibits LoD problems, which will hopefully be rectified for Final Fantasy XV‘s full release. An example of Episode Duscae‘s graphical downgrade can be seen here.

In terms of game systems, several key features have been further clarified this week, and as usual they are a mixed bag. On the unambiguously good end of the spectrum we have the fact that Final Fantasy XV‘s previously mentioned camp sites will function as fast travel points once discovered, so now camping will have a function which is not directly intended to hobble the progress of the player. More dubious is the news that enemies will now flash before performing any major attack, so as to alert players to the fact that they should now be holding the block button. The block button already sounded as though it would make the game too easy, so the least that the game should do is require that players learn to read enemy attack animations.

Lastly, there is the unambiguously disheartening news that the game’s penalty for death seems way too forgiving. So long as there is any party member left alive, they are free to run up to any incapacitated party member and hit a button to revive them [as seen in many shooters]. If the main character’s HP hits zero, they will not in fact die, but rather go into a critical state. Critical state is represented by a gradually depleting critical gauge, and during this time the player can either consume a potion to regain their health, else wait for an AI character to come and revive them. Games like Final Fantasy XIII and Xenoblade Chronicles use very forgiving death mechanics, yet in those games when a player is revived immediately before the fight that killed them, they will find that the enemy’s HP has been replenished – not so Final Fantasy XV, unless the player actually manages to let their critical gauge run down to zero.

One final point of interest is the fact that the game’s basic controller layout has now been announced. The ‘X’ button will be used to jump, while the ‘Square’ button can be held down or tapped in order to execute scripted AI combos. The ‘Triangle’ button is used to execute the character’s equipped special ability, which is derived from a pool of abilities possessed by the character’s currently equipped weapon – the equipped ability can by cycled through by pressing left or right on the dpad. The ‘Circle’ button is used to ‘Shift’ when used normally, or if the player is locked on to an enemy it is then used to ‘Shift Break’, which is essentially a surprise teleportation attack. ‘L1′ is used to block automatically [if held down] or parry [if tapped at the moment of an enemy attack], a function which has been made infantilisingly simple through the inclusion of flashing enemies. Finally, sprinting has been mapped to the ‘L3′ button, much as one would expect to find in a military shooter, and no less obnoxious. One is truly perplexed as to why sprinting could not simply be mapped to one of the trigger buttons.

Another victim of Microsoft’s seventh generation gambit?

tri-Ace Is Kill

When looking for suitors JRPG development studios have often had varying fortunes. Most agree that Nintendo’s acquisition of Monolith Soft was a good move, while many bemoaned a beleaguered Sega’s purchase of Atlus [though this marriage actually seems to be working out thus far]. Both of these fates are far removed from the situation that tri-Ace finds itself in this week, with the privately held company’s three largest shareholders [Yoshiharu Gotanda, Masaki Norimoto, Kenji Goshima] hammering out a deal to sell the company to Nepro, a Japanese phone company, for about one million dollars plus 18,300 Nepro shares a piece. Nepro have already announced that they will be re-focusing tri-Ace to work on tablet and smartphone content.

tri-Ace was originally an offshoot of Telenet Japan’s Wolfteam, the developers responsible for Tales of Phantasia. The company rose to prominence in its partnership with Enix [later Square Enix] during the PS1 and PS2 eras where they turned out many popular, if somewhat flawed, action JRPGS with solid battle mechanics – highlights include: Star Ocean 2 & 3, Valkyrie Profile 1 & 2, and Radiata Stories. Things looked somewhat less rosy during the seventh console generation when they foolishly partnered with Microsoft in order to supply the Xbox 360 with exclusive content: Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean 4 [the latter was later ported to the PS3 after poor sales]. Both titles were considered to be mediocre. After this tri-Ace would partner with Sega in order to develop Resonance of Fate / End of Eternity, a title which was fairly well received, yet debilitatingly niche. tri-Ace’s other seventh generation home console efforts consisted of the co-development of Square Enix’s two Final Fantasy XIII sequels, while the remainder of their output between 2012 and 2014 was comprised of five mobile games spread across the 3DS and PS Vita, none of which have been released in the West. Given tri-Ace’s seventh generation fortunes it is perhaps not difficult to see why they are now kill. If there is a silver lining to this story, it is the possibility that Motoi Sakuraba might actually be able to take a week off of composition in 2015.

Who’s next?

Turds of a Feather

In last week’s news about Peter Molyneux being dragged before the people’s court of public opinion this author expressed the heartfelt wish: “Now if only someone could put John Walker into contact with Tim ‘free money’ Schafer“. That being the case, it seems rather delicious that the world’s second least responsible developer has been steadfastly defended by the absolute nadir of developmental responsibility himself; Tim Schafer. Though of course in coming to his rescue, Schafer may as well have just been defending himself.

The resemblance is actually quite uncanny. Peter Molyneux took 500,000 pounds of PC gamer’s money in order for them to pay for and beta-test a mobile game, while Schafer took over 3,000,000 dollars of PC gamer’s money in order for them to pay for and beta-test a console game – and this is not even going into all the delays, squandered budgets, and non-corporeal backer-tier bonuses that were promised but not delivered upon. They can say what they like, but this does not indicate much in the way of a healthy respect towards their benefactors – but please, do not just take this author’s word on the matter, let us see what Tim Schafer has to say in defense of his fellow conman:

“I’d like to send our support to friend and fellow developer Peter Molyneux. In the last few weeks we’ve seen some extremely rough treatment of Peter on the internet and in the games press and I think it’s really unfortunate and unfair, and I don’t think it’s healthy.

Obviously things did not go as expected with his game and because of that people are making some nasty accusations about Peter, and I can really relate to that, believe it or not. But I’m not saying that developers like Peter and I shouldn’t be responsible and shouldn’t be accountable to deadlines. I’m just saying that the reaction to recent events and the tone of that reaction is really way out of proportion to the seriousness of the events themselves.

Developers are human beings and I think it’s clear that the problems that Peter is having are not unique to him. In fact, they happen on many if not most projects.”

Just in case you missed it:

“I’m just saying that the reaction to recent events and the tone of that reaction is really way out of proportion to the seriousness of the events themselves.”

This statement right here is Tim Schafer in a nutshell. It is the reason that people accost him on the internet. It is all one ever needs know about the man. Tim Schafer is a frivolous lardhead to whom the squandering of three million dollars of backer’s money means very little because it is the sort of thing that he has been doing to publishers for years. Bobby Kotick knew better than to throw good money after bad, which is why Brutal Legend almost never saw the light of day. Given a particular budget, Tim Schafer is not the sort of man to tailor a game’s design to it, rather he will go ahead making the game that he wanted to make, and when the money runs out he will go around with cap in hand begging money from anyone unwise enough to not slap the door in his stupid face upon sight. Both of these developers shit the bed, and now they are complaining at having to sleep in it.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/21/news-turds-of-a-feather/feed/4Editorial: Bravely Defaulting with Predictionshttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/20/editorial-bravely-defaulting-with-predictions/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/20/editorial-bravely-defaulting-with-predictions/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 17:00:12 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12503Despite being sent to work the LusipurrCorp orichalcum mine (Lusipurr wants rims for his car), Java still manages to find time to play Bravely Default, and still wants to talk about it. One would think he would be over it by now. This week? Predictions!]]>

The hair in this game is just atrocious.

Yet another week’s end is breathing down my neck, and I feel like I just got done with the last one moments ago. With a new job (both in real life, and in the game), and thus, a new schedule, time really does seem to fly by, leaving me little opportunity to actually finish a game and graduate one of these editorials to a full figured review. As has been mentioned, my spare moments were, and indeed still are, utterly dominated by Bravely Default as I squeeze a final bit of juice out of my Old 3DS XL. Since I am still harboring jealousy toward the New 3DS owners and their swaths of disposable income, I thought it might be fun to try and predict some points of interest at the end of Bravely Default.

Unless I am completely misreading the game, I am nearly in the final throes of the story. Victoria and Victor just fell by my hand, and if that was any sort of spoiler, then it would be best to stop reading immediately. Otherwise, I was actually quite disappointed with their little story arc. With all this build up of those two being sides of the same psychopathic coin, and Victoria’s apparent health issues, I suppose I expected a more gripping reveal to their history. It felt rushed and awkward the way it was delivered, however, that did not stop me from harvesting the pleasure of hammering that poisonous little twat into the ground first just to see if Victor reacted mid-battle. He did, with a few lines and some useless support spells, in the end, thanking me for “the gift of death.” Now I am curious if Victoria has a reaction if Victor dies first, and how that plays out. Hmm. Where is that time mechanic from Teen Angst is Strange?

One of my biggest curiosities regarding the story has become Ringabel’s past. I will admit to having spent a large portion of the game assuming he was Alternis, either posing as a man with memory loss, or actually being afflicted with a split personality at the will of the Grand Marshal as a sort of sleeper agent. His journal is one of the things that throws me off of this line of thinking, even though ‘Ringabel’ is a play on words for the amnesia, and ‘Alternis’ is an absurdly lazy play on words. The journal vaguely predicts the future, so if Ringabel was really Alternis, this whole mess should not be happening in the first place if the Eternian forces had the ability to know what stood in their way. Something else that is rather niggling, but less so than the journal, is that I get the impression Edea and Alternis had a little thing going on for a hot second there. If this was the case, it would follow that Edea would have recognized Ringabel, only because she would have likely seen Alternis with his armor off. Then again, I have to remember I am playing a game where the characters do not even use the bathroom, as there appear to be none, so who knows how their sexy time behavior might play out. It is not really something I care to analyze.

Oh, who am I kidding. Ringabel is Alternis.

My arrival to Eternia ended up being exactly as I had expected. Once there, I had to visit the hospital which served to confirm the obvious idea that there would be a risk of upsetting something with this crystal hullabaloo and innocent people might die, or some such ethical dilemma. This is typical, but not entirely without merit. While I did assume that this would be the case, my question is what will the compromise be? I suspect that Agnès does not know the whole story behind the Orthodoxy, and will have to confront this in her usual breathy manner while battling the demons that tend to spawn from the meeting of devout practice and new information. That is not interesting. What would be interesting is if she turned out to be so wrong that she is the last remaining pawn of a diabolical, but failed plan to keep the world dependent on the Orthodoxy and its crystals, a situation which would probably piss off Eternian forces more than anyone else since their hospital requires one to operate. Maybe that is a little too much social commentary for a game rated T for Teen, but what do I know, aside from said teens needing to get off my lawn? I have only seen hints in the dialogue to support this Orthodoxy Dependency Theory, and I also cannot see what their gain would be since toiling over a few floating new-age wet dreams seems rather tedious.

While I am discussing crystal conspiracy, I could swear there was a cut scene featuring a meeting of the Council of Six where the Sage’s voice interrupts them from off camera. I was battling a Drowsy that kept casting Sleep on me, but I am pretty sure I caught that just before I decided it was past my bedtime. If that was the case, then compromise will likely be the name of the game, as Agnès would probably be totally cool with letting some crystal power be leached to save a hospital. Well, that or she finds it…unacceptable. Groan. In the end, I think a solution will be found that does not require one or the other side to be completely obliterated, but I am pretty sure Edea is still going to have to fight her dad. Whether he dies at the end or not is up for debate, considering this will take place in a town that has a hospital powered by white magic, which I hear is pretty good stuff.

This is where they explain what species Zatz is…

There is just one final question I have not come up with an answer to; what the Hell is Zatz? A rodent? A rejected muppet? Some kind of new Pokemon? As far as I can tell, he is the only non-human looking NPC in the game, and if there were hints as to his genus and species, then I completely missed it. For now, I will just ride on the joke that he got pummeled so much when he was younger that he is no longer recognizable as a man.

So, with all that out in the open, I will now retire to my busted couch and fleece blanket to see just how very, very wrong I probably am on my predictions. I will not demand there be no spoilers in the comments, as I will simply avoid reading them for the time being (that is a lie), and carry on playing the game. So go ahead and chat it up about Bravely Default, perhaps what you liked and disliked about the end, and I will eventually return to join the conversation.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/20/editorial-bravely-defaulting-with-predictions/feed/6Editorial: Sad Panderhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/19/editorial-sad-pander/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/19/editorial-sad-pander/#commentsThu, 19 Feb 2015 17:00:24 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12497Mel discusses cheap and lazy ploys to get attention and appeal in gaming. Whether it is re-releases, self referencing, or out of place social issues, gaming has been rife with examples of pandering to players' base interests. Join the discussion!]]>

Link and Saria’s departing on the bridge was a nice scene but…

Good day, wintery readers, there are not too many weeks left until this fierce cold melts away into something more tolerable (except for our friends in other hemispheres). Until then, why not abandon the outside world and its harsh demands and read a good Mel article instead? This week, I am going to touch on a pervasive topic in modern gaming, something that has become common if not detrimental only recently as gaming grows an ever bigger history to draw from. It might seem to tread a lot of common ground with my previous article about remasters, but this goes a lot deeper than reheated content. Modern gaming has become rife with examples of pandering to a specific playerbase that is predicted to respond well to it. This can take several forms and in nearly every instance it represents lazy game development often with an insulting connotation to those who pick up on it.

Reheated content, as mentioned previously, is a very common form of pandering to players as it attempts to offer them exactly what it is thought they will enjoy. It does not even attempt to produce something similar, instead this sort of lazy development takes a previous product and (sometimes literally) repackages it as new again. The biggest problem with this method, and the others I will go on to mention, is that does work. That is the player’s problem anyway, as it guarantees less time and effort for original content. But it also ends up being the developer’s problem, as they paint themselves into a corner of burnt out consumer interest when the market is flooded with re-releases. It serves little more than to kick the developmental process of the industry down the road to be resolved another time and the problem is only exacerbated when new hardware is designed not to communicate with old storage mediums. This made more sense earlier on when systems like the NES, SNES and N64 used very different cartridges, it could be reasoned that designing a system and a cartridge that would be backward compatible would probably be more effort and expense than it was worth. Some games would see re-releases, but not very many. Today, the systems are entirely capable of being backward compatible not only because of the ubiquity of the disc format but because the system offers those games as premium downloads. Taking advantage of the information gained from sales of previous re-releases, console makers decided it no longer makes sense to give players access to their old games for free when they will eat up reheated content sometimes at full price all over again.

The complicit nature of players when it comes to industry pandering might seem to challenge the label in the first place, but to pander is to appeal to baser desires. My examples here are all low-effort appeals aimed at getting low-effort responses. A popular old game is on the shelf again, and a simple nostalgia factor drives those purchases. Pandering is almost always referential in some way, which lets the thing in question call on something else to do the mental heavy lifting. In-game references are therefore a major part of the industry’s reliance on pandering and eventually this plague infects every major series. Some new game series even decide to be referential by lazily plopping in callbacks to other games completely out of context, however these examples seem more secluded to the Steam Greenlights of the world. More common is an older game series attempting to deliver on “fan service” by emulating a popular entry in that series. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is largely made of callbacks to the very popular Ocarina of Time, and can be seen as a remake of that game in many ways. That is the obvious example in the series, but in truth the Zelda series has been making callbacks to that particular game ever since. Wind Waker drops references less often but with little reasoning beyond “people will get the reference”, and a time travel mechanic of some sort now seems all but necessary for a console Zelda game. Even when the examples of callbacks and self referential design are inoffensive, as I personally find them to be in most Zelda games, they are still disappointing. Instead of crafting an entire world that could be used to raise the specter of Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess could have been much more original and memorable in its own right. Majora’s Mask, for all its flaws, did an amazing job of being a post-Ocarina entry by keeping the callbacks to minimum (aside from the recycled character models but I do not think they count) while giving context for the callbacks it did use (time traveling).

For all the originality of Wind Waker, it still uses the popularity of Ocarina like a safety blanket at times.

Callbacks and re-releases are all bad enough, but I think the reaction to them is fairly muted. At least it is compared to the kind of pandering I am about to mention which seems to elicit vein-popping outrage in some. Social pandering has come to the scene only recently as social issues in gaming discussion becomes more of a common thread. While personally I am not opposed to a game creator making a social comment in a game of any kind, it is just as disappointing as a lazy callback when some kind of unrelated cause is given a spotlight. The outrage comes less from the fact that pandering in gaming is lazy, because if it did then the outrage would have been here long ago, and more about real people’s reactions to this kind of pandering. When the inclusion of a hotbutton social issue is deemed out of place or lazy it riles up the people close to that particular cause as being evident of opposition to their cause (often labeled casual or unwitting opposition). Issues of gender equality, sexual orientation, and gender identity are usually the topics on the table and unsurprisingly the people enured to those topics treat them very seriously. Whatever conflated attack they perceive on those topics that might actually be directed at the game or at them personally (sometimes illegally, which complicates the discussion), and whatever accusations of misanthropy directed at criticizers, are enough to make sure everyone gets offended to the point of missing the forest for the trees. When battle lines get drawn, any comment coming from “that side” get contextualized out of context, in a way, and the discussion goes no where. Nevertheless, the cheapness of social pandering has not prevented its inclusion in games (which leads to suspicion of outside pressure, which complicates the discussion even further) in much the same way cheap callbacks and re-releases continue to be produced. Eventually these examples mount up and a backlash occurs (not just among those sensitive to examples of pandering) which will suppress these efforts until the industry needs another quick cash injection in four or five years.

Well, I did it, I mentioned social issues in one of my articles. Will you comment now?! I would deliver a more robust prompt here, but I somehow think it will not be necessary. See you next week!

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/19/editorial-sad-pander/feed/11Editorial Miscellany: New Sticker Originshttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/18/editorial-miscellany-new-sticker-origins/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/18/editorial-miscellany-new-sticker-origins/#commentsWed, 18 Feb 2015 17:00:41 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12492This week, Ethos makes bad analogies, talks about RPGs, a physics-based couch co-op game, the New Nintendo 3DS XL, and even dabbles in a little renovation discussion. Who would not want to read all that?]]>

It is more of a pop-in than a pop-out effect.

I do not own the New Nintendo 3DS, LusiStereoscopes. My girlfriend does, however, and therefore I have been obnoxiously stealing it to play any cartridge games I have when she is not using it. Wait, I suppose I am jumping ahead.

Hello and welcome to Editorial Miscellany! This is the series in which I grab various floating balloons inside my head and awkwardly tape them together into some sort of barely coherent balloon collection. Let the clarity and entertainment value of that analogy serve as an analogy for Editorial Miscellany in general.

Let us begin!

New Nintendo 3DS

Like I started to say, I have been trying to play the New Nintendo 3DS every chance I can despite the fact that I do not own one. I was initially excited mostly just for the camera stick, hence why I did not see the point in getting one on day one. If I had not received Majora’s Mask early, it would have been more compelling, but since I did not, I figured I would just wait until there was another piece of must-have software that would make use of it.

However, I was stunned at the effectiveness of the upgraded 3D. Like many, I stopped using the 3D functionality almost entirely just a few weeks after I got my 3DS. I would turn it on on occasion just to see how a certain section of a game looked, but it was too finicky and too much of a strain to use on a consistent basis. Now, however, I am playing Bravely Default and Sticker Star for long stretches on the new device without any problems, only starting to feel strain if I play in the dark. The difference makes me want to go back and replay many games with the feature turned on. Both Bravely Default and Sticker Star are simply better looking to me with the feature turned on.

Of course, there is a paranoid part of me that is worried about long term damage. There is not a lot of data about the effect that gaming-length sessions can have on the eye and the fact that I do experience strain in the dark causes me a bit of worry. I am not sure if this is relevant, but Caileigh says the feature works better for her without her glasses on.

I hate to say it, but my hopes are up for a Nintendo RPG E3 reveal.

Speaking of Sticker Star

If Paper Mario is a cute beginner’s RPG, Thousand Year Door is a fantastic beginner’s RPG, and Super Paper Mario is an inspired and creative beginner’s action RPG, then Sticker Star seems like an introduction to the basics of a beginner’s beginner RPG. I am not far at all, but it seems to be a statement reflecting how much lower Nintendo believes the complexity of an RPG needs to be to entice new players. I am not sold by this approach for a number of reasons. Firstly, I do not believe that children are becoming stupider. Perhaps there are more gamers now and there should be a lower barrier of entry for them, but I would be hard pressed to believe that a Thousand Year Door-style RPG would be too complex. Plus, Dream Team came out on the same system and might be one of the more challenging RPGs that Nintendo has published. Maybe that is it and Nintendo wants two levels of accessibility on their handheld, but even if that wild speculation is true, I am still skeptical.

Mostly it just makes me frustrated that Paper Mario moved to the 3DS, although I suppose I would have been even more insulted if Sticker Star was a console game. As Lusipurr has said in the comments in the past, it is time for the development team to take a break and come back later with new ideas. There are things to like about Sticker Star, but these things are so needlessly shallow that these things become meaningless. Oh well.

Looks fun. Is boring.

Chariot

Meh. I downloaded this on the PS4 because it looked like it could be a fun couch co-op alternative to Nintendo games and I was encouraged by the physics-based gameplay. Physics-based gameplay needs impeccable level design, however, and while the game is very pretty and holds a pretty great gameplay concept, the levels do not represent an interesting, compelling, or natural learning curve. Another round of hyper-critical playtesting might have been a good idea.

An Original Comparison

Dragon Age: Origins runs like complete garbage on the PlayStation 3, but its superiority over Inquisition was still evident from even the hour I played. The lore was inspired and reflective of complex parts of humanity. Inquisition uses this lore as plot, not narrative, and fails to understand more nuanced dynamics. Origins‘ dialogue choices are off the Mass Effect wheel and it is so much better that way. Sure, it is not as flashy, but it does not matter. It feels like real role playing because I am choosing what I want to say, not what I think is more strategic to say. Scratch that, actually, I can still be strategic, but it is based in human response and the risk inherent in any interection. The problem with dialogue in any game in the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series’ that followed was that the curtain was pulled back too far on the inner workings of the mechanic, therefore eliminating what made the feature interesting. Anyway.

I Organized My Bookshelf

I thought everybody should know.

Final Thoughts

Now that is more like an Editorial Miscellany! I certainly covered some miscellanious topics in an editorial fashion. What a world. How are you guys?

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/18/editorial-miscellany-new-sticker-origins/feed/8Editorial: Xbox Indie Games Round-Up, Vol. 2http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/17/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-2/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/17/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-2/#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 17:00:03 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12486Wow! Another week of horrible, crappy Xbox Live Indie Games! Bup cannot wait to show you what he has in store this time!]]>Ah, yes. Another “review” of the horrible wasteland known as “Xbox Live Indie Games.” As always these “reviews” are made completely out of prejudice and without actually playing the games. Let us see what is in store for this week, shall we?

The classic battle strategy of standing five feet in front of your enemy and kind of aiming at them.

One of the worst things about the Xbox Live Indie Games is that since they are only one US dollar people will buy them and figure it is no big deal if the game is crap or not. That makes the “developers” of these games think the games are really popular and their “fans” want a sequel. That is exactly the case with Assault Ops: Warzone. This iteration of the insanely popular Assault Ops franchise adds online multiplayer (so you can find like the two other people in the worst who were dumb enough to buy this game), a NEW urban environment (most likely completely stolen from Call of Duty or Battlefield), and… wait for it…. HEADSHOTS! The fact that the original game did not have headshots should prove that this, and every game on the Indie Games marketplace, are horrible.

Garbage Factor: Headshots/3Age of Developer: Probably some dumb college kid who made this for his dumb college friends.Development Time: I do not even care.

This. This is why I write these articles. The fact that the “developer” of this game thinks anyone would want to play this is ridiculous. Actually, there probably is an audience for this out there, but they are just as ridiculous as this game. No joke: I actually got physically angry when I saw the screenshot of the girl with the blood on her glasses and her tongue hanging out trying to be “sexy.” Also the fact that the “developer” has the hubris to name this “Chapter 1″ is also ridiculous. There is no way this game has enough of a story to carry over to multiple chapters. Even if it does: nobody cares, dude! I hate everything.

Garbage Factor: DD/3Age of Developer: Anime, blood, and boobs. So, probably like 15.Development Time: Like all anime probably 1 hour to code the actual game and countless hours drawing the boobs.

Hmm, let me just throw a bunch of random crap in the level and then call it a day.

This game is so terrible looking I do not even have to write anything about it. In fact, the description makes fun of itself for me. “Mechanician Alex 2 is an arcade platform game. Story: When Alex has finished repairing his car,a terrible monster dropped a bomb on his house.Help Alex to defeat the monster by travelling different levels ..Take key to open doors,active lever to open gate….” None of that was edited by me. These “developers” need to spend less time on their crappy game and more time in English class. I really hope Lusipurr cringed multiple times while reading that.

Garbage Factor: Retro is cool/3Age of Developer: Probably like 40.Development Time: Not sure about development time, but I do know the “developer” spent no time correcting his or her grammar!

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/16/tsm-episode-311-the-many-lies-of-peter-molyneux/feed/16News: Beyond the Palehttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/14/news-beyond-the-pale/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/14/news-beyond-the-pale/#commentsSat, 14 Feb 2015 18:04:26 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12482SVU smear against gamers leads to hilarity, Peter Molyneux gets utterly obliterated in an interview, and REmake producer thanks fans for showing how wrong-headed Capcom has been for more than a decade in the news of the week! ]]>

This episode is being referred to as gaming’s ‘Reefer Madness’.

Professional Victims Unit

Several weeks ago Lusipurr.com brought readers the rumour that gamers were set to feature in an upcoming episode of of Law & Order: SVU, and boy did that prediction ever come to pass. The episode attempted to make gamers look bad by basically parroting the criticism that has been leveled at us by our Social Justice naysayers, yet when it came to depicting these claims the SVU writers used no kind of discernment in their portrayal – they simply listened to and believed the Anitas and Briannas of the social media world. These people will tell anybody willing to listen that gamers are trying to chase women out of the industry because they hate them, and that gamers are worse than ISIS – and this is precisely what we got with the most recent episode of SVU, Intimidation Game.

Voltaire once famously stated:

“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”

And this is why one simply cannot begrudge this depiction of gamers, even despite all of its intended malice – it is simply too stupid. In the world of SVU female game developers are regularly beaten and groped [referred to as leveling up] at game conventions because male gamers are so in incensed at their mere presence, and said assailants are later able to brag about their endeavours on online forums to the universal acclaim of their peers. In the world of SVU a whitewashed parody of RogueStar, known as Acid Rain, abducts SJW game developer Raina Punjabi [herself an amalgam of Anita and Zoe] in order to teach her a lesson, and goes on to brutally gang rape her with his cronies, which they refer to as reaching level seventeen – a reference to their favourite franchise KOBS. This episode did nothing so much as demonstrate precisely how deranged the views of the Social Justice Tumblr crowd are, and the very icing on the cake of this historically hilarious own-goal came in the final minutes of the episode where a tearful Raina comes to the realisation that she was foolish to try and make it in this man’s world, and unequivocally states that the gamers have won and that she is leaving the industry – *boom-tish*.

The own goals did not finish with the episode itself, as one gamer tweeted the show’s writer, Warren Leight, praising the fictional game Amazon Warriors as an implied insult to Brian Wu’s own game Revolution 60 – Leight mistook this as a genuine compliment and retweeted it, much to the chagrin of the Social Justice mob.

“The Amazonian game already looks better than Revolution 60”

This farcical situation has also finally lead to some prominent game developers throwing caution to the wind by tearing strips from the unprofessional games journalism industry which has been demonising gamers for the better part of six months. Mark Kern, former team lead on World of Warcraft and developer on Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II, openly called out journalists [and particularly Polygon and Kotaku] on Twitter, stating:

“Just wanted to thank the GAMES journalists who have demonized our hobby and our customers to the mass media. NOT #LawAndOrderSVU @Kotaku

It’s hard enough as devs to make games without your “journalism.” K? Tks. @Polygon @kotaku #LawAndOrderSVU”

He later took to Reddit in order to further clarify:

“I am dismayed that this disagreement among gamers has resulted in a scorched earth policy by a few elements on both sides (and 3rd party trolls) that have made “gaming” a dirty word again…after all the work we’ve done to get past Columbine, Jack Thompson, etc…we really need to find a way to come back to a healthy mutual respect of our differences with an eye towards promoting gaming as the healthy past-time it is.
Thanks for listening and good luck.”

Bioshock‘s Ken Levine then took to Twitter to highlight the absurdity of a show featuring Ice T being used to smear gamers as misogynists:

“Next week on Law and order, they take on violent, misogynistic music industry. Can Detective ICE-T stop the fiends?!”

Finally, one of the writers of Watch_Dogs, Ethan James Petty, took to Twitter in order to affirm his support of gamers, and was promptly harangued by professional attention whore, Brian Wu:

“[Ethan]: I find it *very* clear that GamerGate is not a hate group. That’s a lazy smear tactic and an obvious lie if you look at their diversity.

Perhaps the funniest thing to emerge from this whole sorry episode is the procession of hypocritical games ‘journalists’ who have been wringing their hands over the fact that gamers have made the industry look so bad. Fuck that. Game ‘journalists’ have had control of this narrative every step of the way, and they decided in their infinite wisdom that the best approach to dealing with gamers was to smear them as raging misogynist nerds. Congratulations, fucktards – this industry is now what you have made of it!

Look into my eyes…

Molyneux Gets Decimated

Peter Molyneux’s Godus is a mess. Molyneux took the money of PC gamers, only to prioritise the mobile version of the game ahead of the PC edition, later releasing a broken build on Early Access which is missing most of its planned features. Earlier in the week both Eurogamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun ran stories exposing the fact that the winner of Peter Molyneux’s Curiosity gamewank has yet to receive his promised rewards, and has not even been contacted by 22 Cans within the last couple of years. He was supposed to serve as the game’s God for a period of time during which he would receive a share of the royalties – something rendered impossible by the game’s current lack of multiplayer. This prompted Molyneux to release a video update where he is seen to essentially wash his hands of Godus. Molyneux and team are moving on to a project tentatively known as The Trail, and are leaving behind a skeleton crew to work on Godus, which is headed up by Konrad, a Godus backer who talked his way onto the team after being so thoroughly dissatisfied with the release of the alpha build.

The release of this video only led to more fallout, which in turn led to Molyneux granting an interview to Rock, Paper, Shotgun – and it is here that something very special happened. Interviewer, John Walker, was prepared for Molyneux’s waffling bullshit, and immediately moved to nail him to the fucking ground, catching him out in lies time and again. One would almost feel sorry for Molyneux if he was not so brazen.

“RPS: Your lead developer on Godus said on your forum that, “To be brutally candid and realistic I simply can’t see us delivering all the features promised on the Kickstarter page. Lots of the multiplayer stuff is looking seriously shaky right now, especially the persistent stuff like Hubworld.”

Peter Molyneux: Well, let me explain that. That was Konrad, and he actually is a backer of Godus.

RPS: A backer who pursued the job at your company because he was so dissatisfied with the state of the game. That’s what he said on your forum.

Peter Molyneux: No. That’s not the case. He actually joined us before we released the version, so that couldn’t have been the case. So Konrad is one of the main architects of multiplayer, and back in late October we – me and Jack – announcing that in November that we would be at last getting through to multiplayer. And Konrad was super excited, we were all super excited, to get on to that. And then in the first week of November our publisher called up and said, well, sorry about this, but the server system that you use called Polargy, we’re going to close down and you need to re-write the entirety of your server code that drives Godus under this new system–

RPS: Just to clarify, five days ago Konrad wrote, “From the minute I played the alpha, I could see the direction Godus was heading in and I didn’t like it. It took half a year to develop contact with Peter personally before I was offered a design position, initially unpaid, and then another year working at 22cans to get a position there.” So just to be clear he says that he played the alpha and didn’t like it and then came to work for you guys.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah. And that’s fair enough. And he did something about it.

RPS: No, but you just told me that he started working for you before the alpha came out so that wasn’t possible.

Peter Molyneux: I think he had had a temporary– He certainly came to the studio– Let me ask. [shouting in background] Konrad!

[in distance] Konrad: Yeah?

Peter Molyneux: When did you first come to 22cans?

Konrad: [inaudible]

Peter Molyneux: December. 2013. Is that– No, that’s not before the alpha.

RPS: No, long after.

Peter Molyneux: I was wrong. But it’s not a lie.”

Molyneux is obviously unfamiliar [and a little taken aback] at actually being nailed for his bullshit. His response to this is to time and again make emotional appeals to try and disarm the interviewer by acting the martyr, a tactic that Walker was having none of:

“Peter Molyneux: And then later on I came out and said it would be six months. And I said that again and again. What are you trying to do? You’re trying to prove that I’m a pathological liar, I suppose, aren’t you.

RPS: I’m trying to establish that you don’t tell the truth.

Peter Molyneux: Let me just ask you one question. Do you think from the line of questioning you’re giving me, that this industry would be better without me?

RPS: I think the industry would be better without your lying a lot.

Peter Molyneux: I don’t think I lie.

RPS: Let me just quote you from the Pocket Gamer–

Peter Molyneux: Well no, and and– Yeah, OK, you can carry on quoting me. Obviously I can see your headline now–

RPS: I don’t think you can see my headline now.

Peter Molyneux: Well I think I can.

RPS: What I want to get out of this–

Peter Molyneux: What you’re almost going to get out of this is driving me out of the industry.

RPS: No, what I want–

Peter Molyneux: And well done John, well done! And if that’s what you want, you’re going about it completely the right way.”

In the interview Molyneux is regularly hammered for asking Kickstarter for less money than he knew he would require for the project, along with not actually employing someone to manage the development and rollout of backer rewards and other such commitments, such as with the winner of Curiosity:

“RPS: No, but it’s frustrating. Let’s go back to Bryan Henderson. The Eurogamer story revealed that you ignored him for nearly two years – that’s awful. And you’ve apologised, but how can that even have ever been a thing that happened?

Peter Molyneux: You’re right, John. It’s wrong. It’s one of those things where I thought someone else was handling it and they were. It was someone – and these are excuses, it’s pointless me writing these excuses – and I thought they were handling it. They left and I assumed incorrectly that they had handed their handling of Bryan off to someone else and they hadn’t.

RPS: But it never crossed your mind to talk to him or anything like that? You were changing his life.

Peter Molyneux: It’s terrible, it’s wrong, it’s bad of me, I shouldn’t have, I should have checked on these things, but there is a million things to check on, John, and that one slipped through. There wasn’t any intention not to use him, or not to incorporate him, but we needed the technology before doing and I am truly sorry and we are writing a letter of apology to him today.

RPS: OK, but only because Eurogamer chased after you.

Peter Molyneux: They, they, they actually did make me realise that I hadn’t checked up on it, it’s true. I am a very flawed human being, as you are pointing out, and I totally accept that I’m a flawed human being.

RPS: Everyone’s a flawed human being, that’s not my point at all.”

Oh, it was incompetence to blame? Well that is alright then! It is so rare to see someone as blithely irresponsible as Peter Molyneux actually being made to give account through some honest to goodness games journalism. Incidentally, Peter Molyneux has subsequently sworn off of giving interviews after being squashed flatter than a pancake. Now if only someone could put John Walker into contact with Tim ‘free money’ Schafer.

This travesty was eminently avoidable.

Capcom Producer Thanks Fans for Making REmake a Record-Breaking Success

Capcom has long been residing over the bizarrely false narrative that horror-based Resident Evil games can no longer be successful in today’s market. This line of thought appears to have taken hold during the GameCube era when Resident Evil 4 was such a smashing success for the company, yet this reading of the situation is not supported by the actual numbers. Viewed in context on the GameCube, Resident Evil 0 and the Resident Evil remake sold four-hundred thousand and under three-hundred thousand copies fewer than Resident Evil 4 respectively. There is every reason to believe that if these games had been released to the PS2 then they would have performed proportionally well, especially given the performance of Resident Evil‘s re-release on PSN.

This week the Resident Evil remake’s producer, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, has thanked fans for helping the game set sales records on PSN. The game is PSN’s highest ever selling digital release, and it was the month’s top selling PS3 and PS4 release. For the first time in a long while there is the faintest glimmer of hope that Capcom may see this stunning success and realise that is a genuine appetite for this sort of game, though as Lusipurr.com’s Mel points out this may just convince them that there is an appetite for lazy re-releases.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/14/news-beyond-the-pale/feed/3Editorial: Choices Are Strangehttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/13/editorial-choices-are-strange/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/13/editorial-choices-are-strange/#commentsFri, 13 Feb 2015 17:00:17 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12475With little else to do in his evening holding pen, Java turns to adventures where choice seems to matter. Life is Strange and Telltale's Game of Thrones both offer player choice in two different ways. Is one better than the other? Java wants to find out.]]>

Hoodies are strange.

The end of January brought Life is Strange to my television, giving me a reason to dust the screen and the Xbox 360 sitting placidly beside it. This new choice-driven adventure perhaps made a bit of a jealous ex-girlfriend out of Telltale. As if our relationship was not already rocky, I was left feeling slighted by Game of Thrones: Lost Lords‘s dated engine and shoddy performance, as though it were an act meant to punish me for hanging out with another game. Well, since I am already in the doghouse, I might as well see just how much more hot water I can get myself into by comparing them in some kind of pageant that exists only in my head.

Right off the bat, I realized I was not the audience Life is Strange was intended for, probably because I am a cranky old man who does not understand these damned kids and their music. If there is one thing I hate in a story, it is any characters that remind me of a Facebook post from that guy who wastes everyone’s time quoting song lyrics to appear deeply emotional and so utterly conflicted by life. I was not exactly prepared to encounter ‘kids these days’ in a game, but that I hate it might mean they captured things rather flawlessly. In Teen Angst is Strange, the player is thrust into the world of an eighteen year old girl in a hoodie, snapping away her interest in photography with a Polaroid camera, like any other self-proclaimed hipster. Of course, this is all intentional, meant to be a tongue-in-cheek commentary since her school of choice is populated with just about every stereotype from Mean Girls, which, to be fair, happens to be a pretty funny movie. Yet, this might be a good thing.

Girls are strange.

Our photographer hipsterette, sporting the name Max like a champ, turns out to have some temporal tweaking abilities in that she can rewind time. This is ultimately what got me interested in the game, and ultimately what may be the very factor that reverses my interest in it. When I play other games where choice is a decidedly deciding factor, I often spend unmentionable amounts of time wondering how the story would be going if I had done things different. Life is Strange seemed to promise something I had always wanted; the ability to go back and reverse a decision. As it turns out, I could not have been more wrong in my desire for such an option.

My decisions in Life is Strange feel less meaningful, though I am still trying to determine if that has to do with how the time mechanic is being handled, as opposed to the old way of making a choice, then dealing with the nagging doubt that perhaps the wrong path was set upon without any further information to go on. The latter (the Ignorance Method) quite possibly added to these games for me by creating that instant doubt, whereas the former (The Semi-Informed Method) is allowing me to make a weighted decision while taking away a tiny bit of the surprise. What is really interesting to me is that I may be in for an even bigger twist than I am giving the game credit for. The thing is that the player only gets to see the immediate consequences of a choice when time reversal is used. Typically, nothing else is indicated, save for an ominous message stating “this action will have consequences.”

If I hold to my complaints about the story, and the time mechanic proves to be ripples in a vast pond of possibilities, I may very well end up blown away by how the writers can weave an intricate and compelling story into this game. What I suppose I am saying is that I see the possibility for this series to be something great, and my initial hang-ups about it might actually be setting me up for a massive change of heart. If that was a writer intention, then bravo. After all, the series is only on the first episode, and while the camera work (the actual game camera, not the dumb Polaroid) often makes me think I have been drinking heavily, I will be giving the next episode a chance when it drops.

Snow, looking as pouty and concerned as ever. Swoon, if you must.

After showering, so as to remove any scent of a competing game, I returned to the finicky bed of Telltale Games. GoT:Lost Lords opened with all the usual series fanfare, showing me that mechanized map of Westeros and its distant lands, then it suddenly stopped opening. Oh, pardon me; the audio worked fine. I was presented with a black screen, and while I patiently waited for the game engine to recover, I was missing dialogue choices to things that seemed rather important, considering the game drops the player into Asher Forrester’s suave boots. No big deal, I have dealt with glitchy games in the past, so I simply restarted. The second time around, I managed to get short spurts of visuals before they would freeze at crucial moments, considering I let poor Asher get skewered three times before the game would let me see what button I was supposed to press to prevent sharp metal things from entering his chest.

This was bothersome and persistent through the entirety of the game, and shows just how piss poor the game engine is. What is arguably the oddest thing about my experience with these first two episodes is that in the first one these hiccups did not bother me as much. They were certainly there, though from what I recall, they were brief and typically unobtrusive, happening at moments where a few frames of jumpy or blank screens would not really matter. Was it luck? I honestly have no idea, as I can not begin to imagine would could possibly be different about the production between the first and second episode. Maybe there is something to be said about waiting for patches, but I did not do this for the first part of GoT, so that is likely not the case. Whatever happened, it made the game nearly impossible to enjoy. Yes, nearly. In the end, it is a Game of Thrones thing, and I am a slut who can not get enough of the franchise.

As both games progress, I will be reporting back. In the meantime, if anyone needs me, I will be huddled under a warm blanket with Bravely Default to distract me from this bone-biting Midwestern Winter chill.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/13/editorial-choices-are-strange/feed/4Editorial: Remastered or Recycled?http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/12/editorial-remastered-or-recycled/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/12/editorial-remastered-or-recycled/#commentsThu, 12 Feb 2015 17:00:00 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12470Mel looks at remasters this week in both a positive and negative light. Older titles were often unbound by the obsequious practices of modern gaming, which is nice, but a flood of remasters would be far from nice! Flood the comments and be nice (or not)!]]>

The HD remaster is actually not that much prettier than the original.

I recently finished my first playthrough of Resident Evil HD Remaster, tenebrous readers, and I can safely say it gave me precisely what I wanted. But what has the remastered version set the table for in the future? Especially considering this is Capcom’s endeavor, the company responsible for more re-releases than any other, what has been set in motion by this game’s release? Well, it would be one thing if the game did not sell particularly well but in point of fact it sold fantastically. It sold the best on PSN where the game broke records for the fastest selling digital release as well as the biggest day-one digital release, and I am sure it sold similarly on PC (where I bought it) and Xbox Live. And for good reason, the game remains a great exemplar of the now-anemic survival horror genre.

With few high profile examples in the field, titles like The Last of Us stand mostly alone, survival horror has been mostly disserviced or simply unserviced for a long while. Thankfully Resident Evil HD was released to act as a temporary oasis amidst glancing blows at the bulls eye like The Evil Within. RE HD‘s sound and visual style are conveyed surprisingly well to a high definition platform, getting rid of many of the GameCube’s glaring limitations while also adding new features and content to the offer. The new play control method functions more or less as a learning tool for people who have not or could not get comfortable with old tank controls. And while I think the new control scheme has more drawbacks than not over the originals, I welcome their addition as I would any other options of its kind. The puzzle designs and enemy encounters have all be left unchanged, the extra unlockables remain precisely where they were but with a few more costume options, and a couple of online leaderboard features were sprinkled on top for good measure. Having played through the GameCube version at least a dozen times, I had a great time noticing all the little details a standard definition game struggled to elucidate.

But it worries me that this game is not the guiding light it should be. As I mentioned, knowing the pedigree of the company responsible for this re-release (of a remake), I feel the lesson learned was not to make more games like this, given its success, but to re-release more games like this. Or, quite possibly, Capcom will look at these results and simply re-release more games in general from the early 2000s. Now, I am not wholly against this prospect. And given what else Capcom has been up to of late, and the treatment of anything that is not Monster Hunter, I suppose this constitutes an improvement. Worse yet would be that this success, borne mostly on the backs of buyers starved for content, will be construed by other publishers as a genuine appetite for re-releases. While the market might indicate this at first blush, it would be shortsighted to push that envelope. In time, if not nearly already, re-releases and remasters will be about as welcomed as another Minecraft clone. I admit that some old sixth generation titles do deserve to be given that fresh coat of paint, with hopefully some new extras added in, and I could probably devote a whole article to which games I think deserve the treatment. However, when we are already seeing remastered versions of games released only a year ago, I can only imagine what to expect next.

Getting munched on by zombies never looked so good.

There is, however, an interesting wrinkle to be found in remastering older games for today’s market. Games like Resident Evil HD are notably focused and complete packages in comparison to modern AAA releases like Evolve. The comparison to modern gaming is almost damning of the chopped up content served today with extraneous online modes or half-assed DLC campaigns. While people might buy these things up, the numbers do not lie about RE HD‘s success, which make clear that those things are not what is driving sales. I would posit that modern games sell well despite all of the publisher’s anchors thrown around neck of the game. Much like TV commercials, these niggling addons become more and more invisible to the buyers until they do not realize that gaming was not always this way. It would be a fine comeuppance indeed if in the mindless push for more remasters of old games, consumer distaste for modern games’ monetization methods were soured. It would be very much like this industry to serve itself its own demise on a platter. While DLC and online features can be done right, they are hardly necessary and a break from them is a respite I look forward to even if it is based on false pretenses.

Have you run aground of any remasters yet, fine fellows? Do you plan to? Let me know what your thoughts are about my concerns over this as a booming trend in the comments below. Then feel free to remaster those comments in my HD re-release of this article in 2016.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/12/editorial-remastered-or-recycled/feed/17Editorial Miscellany: Familiar Placeshttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/11/editorial-miscellany-familiar-places/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/11/editorial-miscellany-familiar-places/#commentsWed, 11 Feb 2015 17:00:36 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12467After a few weeks of Majora's Mask, Ethos is back to his old self with his return to Editorial Miscellany. That is correct, he wanders aimlessly across topics in true mediocre form. Meeting middling expectations: that is the Ethos guarantee. ]]>

Yuna doesn’t even die!

Oh hello there, LusiCoys! It has been some time since I mildly annoyed you all with an Editorial Miscellany, and seeing as I am onto my final few weeks here at Lusipurr.com, I thought I would give everybody (including myself) something a bit more familiar. Although I suppose taking thousand words to say I like Majora’s Mask is not particularly out of the ordinary.

I – as always – digress.

To fit the theme, after beating Majora’s Mask I returned to some familiar comfort games. Here are the things I thought about while playing them.

Final Fantasy X

Even for a site that can get pretty RPG-focused, the last few years have run this topic into the ground. I do not have anything fresh to say about FFX as a game as I finally near the end of the remastered version. What I have realized, however, is that I expect that this is the last time I am ever going to replay it. I was talking to my brother about this a few days ago and while I am glad that I replayed the entire thing again, I think the only way I would attempt another playthrough would be if I learned Japanese and played it in its original language so I could see what was lost or gained in translation. Maybe then it would not be such a tonal disaster, but I am hard pressed to imagine a way in which all those camera swoops and inane prolonged adolescent reactions would work. I am excited to put this one behind me pretty much for good.

Bravely Default

Call it the habit of a long-time addict, but sometimes I just want to sit around and level up. My go to series used to be Dragon Quest, but seeing as there is no convenient way to play VIII and that is the one I have the biggest craving to play, Bravely Default is pretty much the perfect pill. Especially given how easily I can skip all the terrible dialogue and just focus on the beautiful locations and that sweet, sweet level-grinding.

Exciting!

I still do not really know what it is. During my first playthrough I could argue that grinding allowed for testing strategies of different class combinations and gaining new abilities, but during this playthrough, I am massively overleveled for the place in the game I am. I turned the encounter rate up to double, set my characters to auto-attack at four times the speed and just plow through. I suppose it is in some ways the same carrot-dangling that recent freemium games have capitalized on by distilling the process and then charging for it, but it is starting to make me think about the future of RPGs. Bravely Default is great for its battle system and high level of gameplay customization that I hope is its biggest influence on future games.

What was I talking about again? Breakfast?

Hearthstone

It is a little strange that I have not yet mentioned Hearthstone on here yet. I was never one to play Magic: The Gathering or other such games (I just wish there was a commonly used acronym for games in which cards are collectible. Oh that is it! GiWCaC), but with the advent of my new touch screen laptop and my general interest in everything Blizzard produces means that I am playing it more than I ever thought I would. I have been working hard on my next project and a variety of other things, so Hearthstone provides a nice break that only usually lasts about ten to thirty minutes. I know I will never have the time be a pro or a sub-pro or a novice or a novice-in-training or even start winning more than twenty five percent of my games, but I like the way it makes me think, and it is a fun game to discuss and play with friends.

But seriously. Breakfast

I had been doing so well with being a functional human being the past few weeks that I suppose it was fated to break down at some point soon. I will eat right after I post this. I am sure everybody feels blessed by this knowledge.

Final Thoughts

Well this felt pretty familiar to me! Tepid meandering of thoughts and topics that provide little insight or entertainment. That is the Ethos way, and I need to make sure you all remember me as such. Anyhoo, if any of you LusiTaunts play Hearthstone, let us talk in the comments and hopefully play each other at some point!

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/11/editorial-miscellany-familiar-places/feed/9Editorial: Xbox Indie Games Round-Up, Vol. 1http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/10/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-1/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/10/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-1/#commentsTue, 10 Feb 2015 17:00:26 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12459This week Bup "reviews" some games from Xbox's Indie game library. If you thought Steam Greenlight was a pile of garbage, wait until you see these!]]>If Steam Greenlight is the garbage dump for PC games, Xbox Live Indie Games is basically the piles of garbage we shoot into space because we have no where else to put it. Not only are these “games” available and released, the developers have the hubris to charge for them. Even one US dollar is too much for these piles of crap. Now, these “reviews” will be a bit different than my Steam Greenlight ones everyone has come to love. Not only are there no comments to enjoy for these titles, but Xbox allows users to classify these games one a scale of one to three using the following categories: Sex, Violence, and Mature Content. I have decided to make my own classifications for these games: Garbage Factor, how old I think the developer most likely is, and how long it probably took to program these piles of trash. Enjoy.

Pending lawsuit aside, this is actually a pretty decent recreation of the GameBoy.

Well, this is a first for me. We have seen Minecraft, Tererria, and Call of Duty clones, but never a GameBoy clone. I fully expect this game to be taken down soon and the above link to redirect to a 404 page. Not only is this a clone of a game system, it also includes clones of games that have been cloned a million times before. Snake, Tennis and Break have all been recreated to death by every game developer to ever exist. Oh, and we also get a Flappy Bird clone, because who does not want a clone of a game that came out two years ago that caused the developer to pull it off the Apple and Google stores? I sure am glad to see this is only version one though. That means we will see more in the future! Hooray!

Garbage Factor: 3/3Age of Developer: Since the original GameBoy is fairly old at this point, I would say 35. Which is sad.Development Time: Like an hour. At best.

It would not be a “Round-up” article without a Minecraft clone, would it? Not only that, but it also adds one of my other favorite things: hot anime babes! So, I guess in this game one plays as “Alex the Jetpack Guy” and explores Minecraft caves to save some anime ladies. Basically this game is a 12-year-old’s wet dream. I have a feeling that this game started just with this guy and his jetpack exploring caves and the developer got some boner while watching anime, so he decided to add the hot anime babes. Wait. I hate Minecraft clones AND I hate anime. Was this game made to torture me with? Is this how I will die?

Garbage Factor: A billion/3Age of Developer: Since it includes both Minecraft and anime, I am going to assume like 14, but it is probably more like 25. Frickin’ weeaboos.Development Time: 15 hours. Five hours to develop the actual game and 10 hours for fapping breaks.

This is it. This is why I began writing these articles in the first place. This game was basically made for teenage boys to get a boner from, but justifying it by saying it is a real game. Even the developer pretty much admits that they did not even try while making this game. The game’s description says in this game the player is a “photographer” who takes pictures of a “sassy shopgirl” for “charity.” Yes, I know HUNDREDS of charities just itching for pictures of some busty girl in various skimpy outfits. Actually, this is basically the game version of Terry Richardson’s life. LusiPervs know him, right? The scumbag-looking photographer who takes nudes of all those celebrities and then claims they are “art.” This game basically has some CG-created girl in skimpy outfits and then adds some crappy puzzle elements to make it into a “game.”

Garbage Factor: I do not think numbers go high enough/10Age of Developer: Again, this is basically made for 12-year-olds, so the developer is probably like 20.Development Time: Like an hour to steal the puzzle mechanics and then probably a month to render the girl’s boobs.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/10/editorial-xbox-indie-games-round-up-vol-1/feed/5TSM Episode 310: Use the Force, Harryhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/09/tsm-episode-310-use-the-force-harry/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/09/tsm-episode-310-use-the-force-harry/#commentsMon, 09 Feb 2015 05:00:53 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12456Lusipurr and SiliconNooB board the FellowShip Enterprise, and beam down with Capt. Reynolds, Mr. Snape, and Dr. Who to Hill Valley, 12 November, 1955, to defeat the Eye of Voldemort and Darth Tannen, who are trying to use the One Wand to rule the galaxy.]]>

Lusipurr and SiliconNooB board the FellowShip Enterprise, and beam down with Capt. Reynolds, Mr. Snape, and Dr. Who to Hill Valley, 12 November, 1955, to defeat the Eye of Voldemort and Darth Tannen, who are trying to use the One Wand to rule the galaxy.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/09/tsm-episode-310-use-the-force-harry/feed/29News: A Fishy Inquisitionhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/07/news-a-fishy-inquisition/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/07/news-a-fishy-inquisition/#commentsSat, 07 Feb 2015 17:33:44 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12451Sledgehammer Games feel 'snubbed' at DICE awards, Nintendo are to clone smartphone games for 3DS, and industry corruption is revealed in a TechRaptor interview in the news of the week!]]>

Nothing says game of the year material quite like following the orders of money-bags Kotick!

A Dicey Summit

This past week has seen 2015’s DICE summit, and with it the bestowing of a slew of awards in what is widely considered to be the video game industry’s equivalent of the Oscars or the Grammys – and what would the Grammys be without their very own big, fat Kanye West, this year played with aplomb by Sledgehammer Game’s Glen Schofield, director of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. This butthurt fool took to Twitter in order to bemoan the fact that his game was “snubbed“, implying that he considers his derivative drek to have excelled in at least some aspect against the year’s other major titles:

“Snubbed at DICE. I do have to say it hurts. Really does.”

No, Schofield, you were not “snubbed“. To be snubbed would require making a game with actual merits to set it apart from the pack. When you release essentially the same game every year for the past seven years there really is not a lot to distinguish it from the rest of the competition. One has the sneaking suspicion that Schofield’s indignation stems more from the fact that DICE failed to rubber stamp one of the biggest sellers of 2014, which he surely must have all but assured of given the popularity contest nature of these sorts of award shows.

The year’s most prolific award recipient was Monolith’s Shadow of Mordor, picking up a haul of eight DICE awards, which seems fitting given that it was the only Western developed game of 2014 to offer innovative game mechanics of any sort. That said, Shadow of Mordor did not win the overall game of the year category, that honour went to Dragon Age: Inquisition – so perhaps Glen Shofield was justified in feeling snubbed after all. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare does not distinguish itself in any way, yet at least it is successful in being the game that it attempts to be – and that is a game which is considered to be fun by a large audience [of morons]. By comparison Dragon Age: Inquisition is a failure on every front, offering a campaign which is a glorified list of fetch quests, and a narrative which perpetrates all the worst excesses of fangirl slash fiction. Then again, the year’s big losers are probably non-Nintendo Japanese games such as Bayonetta 2 and Dark Souls II, both of which eclipse the mid-80s metaratings of Shadow of Mordor and Dragon Age: Inquisition with Metacritic scores of 91 each.

The bananas say what now?

Nintendo

It is a source of great personal amusement to watch as Iwata awkwardly dances around the subject of smartphone development. The greater portion of Nintendo’s investors have got it into their heads that Nintendo’s best path to profitability is to start releasing cherished Nintendo franchises on iOS and Android platforms – as though that will not debase Nintendo’s currency. When last we left Iwata he had given a halfhearted [and one posits insincere] commitment that Nintendo would release a few smallish games on smartphone platforms which would be designed to lure smartphone gamers over to Nintendo hardware. Now it would seem that the oracular bananas have changed their minds, and instead wish Iwata to instruct Mr Nintendo to plagiarise successful smartphone games for release on the 3DS!

That is right – Nintendo’s path back to profitability involves cloning successful smartphone games for release on their console hardware, raising the pertinent question of why anyone would opt for the more expensive Nintendo option when they could just install the original game on their phones. Iwata revealed to Nikkei that the low development costs of smartphone gaming would allow them to notionally release these games for the low price of several hundred yen, yet one wonders how this thought bubble reconciles with their plans for the release of Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition, which is set to receive a physical release for a price that is presumably greater than several hundred yen.

This past week has seen Alistair Pinsof give his first interview since being fired from Destructoid for uncovering Kickstarter fraud, and being subsequently blacklisted from working within the gaming media by the ‘GameJournosPro’ mailing list. In it he discusses at length the conflict of interest which was created when an indie gaming journalist, Brandon Boyer, found himself in control of the most powerful indy gaming body in the world, the IGF. Pinsof recounts the ways in which IGF nepotism led to awards being handed to personal friends as though they were candy.

“In 2011, at Fantastic Arcade, I was talking to a former game journalist Tiff Chow who I recognized from her work at Destructoid in 2008. I asked what she thought would win the Best Game Award, she flippantly bragged that her boyfriend is friends with Brandon so he’ll win. I took it as a bad joke. Next day, sure enough, he won Best in Show for Faraway, against games such as Fez (which won audience award), Skulls of the Shogun, Radical Fishing, and Octodad. It seemed fucked up, but it was such an insignificant show and I depended on Brandon as a local journalist so I stayed silent. Looking back now, it definitely makes me question how the IGF is run. Along with all the controversy around IGF judges years back and recent rumors that have come out about Fez being pushed by investors who shared judging roles, what I witnessed give these claims some credibility along with how Brandon Boyer treated me personally recently, when I’ve always been a friend and supporter to him.”

It was not just this cronyism that was problematic, but also the fact that Boyer held the power to effectively ruin the careers of anyone he deemed to be unsightly – meaning that these kind of ethics beaches could not be addressed for fear of angering the biggest fish in the pond. Speaking of fish, Phil Fish was someone who Pinsof considers to have benefited quite considerably through his manipulation of high-level friendships with Boyer and the game media at large, effectively granting him impunity for stealing the work of other indie developers for his popular platformer, Fez. Shawn McGrath created the central mechanic of Fez, which allows players to rotate the 2D world in three dimensions, and much of the game’s code is lifted directly from one of his prior projects, meanwhile Jason Degroot designed the game’s sound. There was a falling out in 2007, and it was agreed that the game would cease production, yet it would seem that Fish continued development, utilising both McGrath and Degroot’s work, and when the game was hugely successful upon release, the two saw not a penny.

“The thing the public never knew – that McGrath and Degroot held for leverage should the filmmakers & Fish not change the credits – is that McGrath worked on Fez until the GDC trailer put out in October 2007, according to McGrath. At this point, McGrath had a second falling out and this time it was serious. McGrath told him they were done and Fish agreed to cancel the project. The agreement was that McGrath would take his original design (2D/3D rotating mechanic) and Fish would take his Trixel engine, according to McGrath. When McGrath saw the game appear at IGF 2008, he was furious and felt backstabbed. There’s been bad blood between them ever since. This behavior seems habit for Fish since the same thing happened to Degroot who designed the game’s original audio aesthetic via sound effects and a chiptune score, only to be cut and suddenly replaced with someone else who copied his style — it’s an amazing soundtrack but Fish keeps bringing in new people to follow through on other people’s ideas.

I think Fish is a talented visual designer and Fez carries his unique stamp on it, but the problem — and this is according to McGrath — remains that two of its biggest creators were snubbed out of its development, uncredited, unpaid, stolen from, and lied to. What makes this an industry wide problem is that the two were afraid to speak out because of Fish’s connections. Fish was friends with Boyer who ran the IGF, Fish was a social butterfly who knew a lot of gaming press (there were multiple videos of him casually hanging out with 1UP staff back on their video site in 2008) and had high level connections at Microsoft. Degroot & McGrath feared Fish would use his connections to ruin their career right as they were to debut their successful indie title Dyad.“

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/07/news-a-fishy-inquisition/feed/4Editorial: The Gaming Classroomhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/06/editorial-the-gaming-classroom/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/06/editorial-the-gaming-classroom/#commentsFri, 06 Feb 2015 17:00:24 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12438After some esoteric calculations, Java has decided that gaming needs more science. He has never been a big fan of homework, but he would certainly play it in a video game. This week, he looks at some edutainment and wonders why it seems to be so terrible.]]>

KSP: mercilessly testing the boundaries Newton’s Second Law.

Gaming would not be where it is today were it not for science. Specifically, computer science, but science none the less. I promise I will not start rambling mercilessly about the history of the microchip or go on for days about how Ada Lovelace is technically the first programmer, but I do get a bit giddy in the pants when I see two of my longest friends, video games and science, start making eyes at each other. When those two are in a room together and the moon is just right, the potential for glorious things is palpable. However, they do not always get it right. Considering the marriage of science and gaming is something I would love to see more of, I will attempt to articulate exactly what I would like to see happen.

I feel obligated to begin with Kerbal Space Program. It may seem like I am blowing my perfect example wad too soon, and that is probably true. In my mind, KSP speaks with a booming authority when I think of games that are not only fun to play, but have provided a playground in which to exercise my pudgy brain. There is a reason I list it as one of my favorite games, and that is because Squad is not screwing around when it comes to the implementation of the game’s physics. This actually put me in a position to taste some maths in order to better understand the orbital mechanics. That I found myself set to employ Newtonian Laws to augment my rocket skills had me chuckling at how far things have come since the edutaining Reader Rabbit. The point is that things were being learnt, and it was happening in both a challenging and enjoyable environment.

What is a little disappointing about the copulation of gaming and science is that, as it stands, the Citizen Science movement seems to not really be grasping the idea they would probably garner a broader audience with their apps if said apps were fun. Casting aside my own Puritanical bent of what people ought to be devoting their free minutes to, I can not even begin to deny the rich trove of data that could be collected if the user experience included entertainment value. I am personally very interested in many of the projects out there, but I also know that a good chunk of people associate science with tedium, and perhaps they are correct to a degree. In modern video games, there is an opportunity to show those folks otherwise.

“Why yes, this image DOES look slightly different from the last one!” – said every Citizen Scientist

Before I continue, I should briefly define what the Citizen Science movement is. At its most basic, it is crowd-sourcing various tasks, typically in an effort to either train (the loose definition of the word) a better computer to do something, or harness the vast computing power of the incredibly bored. While there are a variety of projects from different fields available to participate in, the fact is that any participant will generally be asked to click something or other on an endless slideshow. A great example would be CERN’s Higgs Hunters. Particle physics is easily one of the most fascinating things I can think of, but I only lasted about twenty images before I realized I could be putting forth similar efforts and getting paid for it by logging on to Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Getting back on track, Citizen Science might not be able to match the fun factor of something like KSP, but a little effort to do so probably would not hurt. Take the California Academy of Science’s iNaturalist, for example. With a dash of imagination, and a peek at Pokémon, it is not difficult to see how this could be a way to engage people who tend toward apathy when it comes to dabbling in nature studies.

There is a plethora of these types of projects going on out there, and I suppose I have to admit that the people leading these projects are not completely dead to the idea that it could be more amusing to the user. I have not had the chance to try the offerings, but Citizen Sort bills itself as entertaining, even going so far as to use the words ‘video game’ as opposed to ‘app.’ The point is that the technology to develop a simulator suitable for entertainment, education, and research data harvesting exists to a degree. It just boggles me as to why it is not being exploited for just such a purpose.

Moonbase Alpha had a text to speech option…

Of course, NASA, my third favorite acronym, might be upping their game. I am actually very surprised that I got this far in the article without bringing them up. NASA is no stranger to placing the opportunity to participate in science at the fingertips of curious people everywhere, and video gaming has been on their to-do list since at least 2010 when Moonbase Alpha arrived on Steam. Sure, Moonbase Alpha was probably the number one game to make fun of for a hot minute there, and that is the only reason I link to the Steam page. Bup might appreciate some of the comment gems that can be found about the game’s issues, accompanied by a deceptively high rating of arbitrary stars.

NASA’s next attempt was to be an astronaut MMO aimed at finally using their “position to develop an online game that functions as a persistent, synthetic environment supporting education as a labratory.” Now that is what I like to hear! Sadly, after some studio debacles and other weirdness, we seem to be left with a twenty minute prototype for…something…in the form of Starlite: Astronaut Rescue, a lamentable flop that nobody should be okay with. It actually pains me to link to such wasted potential. Then again, NASA holds to the principle that failure is a fine tool, so perhaps they should just bed down with Squad, and attempt to merge science and gaming the correct way.

Well, I have made myself sad again, so it looks like I will be firing up KSP soon to scratch that edutainment itch. Hey, while we are here, let us fantasize a bit, shall we? Invent a game of science within the limits of your own imagination. What would it be? Mine would probably be some simulated version of Fantastic Voyage combined with NanoDoc’s goal of arming nanoparticles and observing their behavior against cancer cells, tweaking and strengthening my micro-army as the game progresses.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/06/editorial-the-gaming-classroom/feed/6Review: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3Dhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/05/review-the-legend-of-zelda-majoras-mask-3d/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/05/review-the-legend-of-zelda-majoras-mask-3d/#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 17:00:30 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12439Ethos beat Majora's Mask 3D after playing through it slowly for a few weeks and decided to write two thousand words about it. Yikes. For those in a rush, here is the quick version: The game is still good. The 3DS makes it better. ]]>

Majora’s Mask 3D Cover Art

“With every good deed, a child takes one step closer to adulthood.”

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is, even after fifteen years, a brave experiment. It seems – at first glance – to be built to repel those who would have any interest in it, yet it has gathered a strong and devoted following since its original release on the Nintendo 64 in the year 2000. Zelda is a series that encourages exploration and building a relationship with the environments that Link finds himself in. Yet Majora’s Mask employs a countdown system that appears to rush players along, it chops down the number of proper dungeons to four, and it requires players to do and witness the same things over and over again. Surely this should be considered punishment, not pleasure.

Do not be fooled, because Majora’s Mask is still demonstrably a game about Link growing up and becoming a master of his environment, but he must do so in an unfamiliar way despite the eerie sensation of so many aesthetic and mechanical familiarities, which appropriately mirrors the player’s experience. For players who are willing to interact with the occasionally frustrating price of admission, the rewards are immensely gratifying and any frustration becomes a quaint necessity in retrospect.

To give context, Majora’s Mask is a direct sequel to the very well-received and influential Ocarina of Time which also received a remastered edition on the 3DS just under four years ago. Whereas Ocarina of Time did everything it could to take the sweet and simple coming of age stories as well as the swords and sorcery worlds of the previous 2D entries and transfer them to the related but ultimately separate genre of 3D action-adventure, Majora’s Mask had less pressure to be both a series and genre-defining event. Therefore it had the freedom to be a bold and thoughtful reaction to Ocarina of Time and as such, it is experimental and fresh and there is still no other Zelda entry quite like it.

As a remastered edition, the 3DS version of Majora’s Mask shines, even on systems unable to take advantage of the free-motion camera control and the improved glasses-free 3D technology. The design team not only made the user interface more quick and easy to manage by making great use of the touch screen in similar fashion to Ocarina of Time 3D, but it also made some small, but noticeable changes to some elements of the game itself. The changes will only be apparent to those most familiar with the ins and outs of Majora’s Mask – things like changed shop locations and different conditions to complete certain quests or obtain certain masks – but many of the changes make the game slightly more challenging and all lend themselves to the idea that the team that brought the game back to life were still aware of what made it so special in the first place.

A very useful little mask for rupee collection or for the ill-prepared.

At first, the hub world of Clock Town and the surrounding land of Termina appears tiny. After Link explores the town and completes the first dungeon, it is possible that an uninitiated player could become skeptical if he is not already. Everything seems so familiar, but with an annoying time limit and fewer dungeons. The cult appeal of the game might appear skin deep; after all, a giant angry moon and slightly more creepy music than Ocarina of Time provided could be nothing more than cheap aesthetic tricks.

And while Majora’s Mask greatest flaw is found in not properly setting the player on the right path to discovering the game’s sense of logic, once a player finds it, there is no turning back.

While technically the player will still need to defeat all the dungeons in order to defeat the final boss and while each dungeon is found in an area that only plays a slight variation to the series’ typical choice of biomes, if players familiar with the Zelda formula attempt to play Majora’s Mask like any other Zelda game, the mechanics will be nothing but a frustrating hindrance, an unnecessary timer on areas that they would be free to roam in other Zelda games.

The trick is realizing that Link still has all the time in the world.

This is the path to finding the game’s unique mood that pairs Link’s growing power with an equal sense of loneliness. The first step is paying attention to the Bomber’s Notebook (the quest log that has gained some significant upgrades in this remaster) and realizing that a countdown clock should not be equated to urgency. The NPCs are starting to panic, but Link is fine. Termina is Link’s Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and Majora’s Mask is his Groundhog Day. The moment players slow down and start combing through their environment and interacting with characters, the more they will find the environments and characters will give back. Beyond small things like experimenting with how NPCs react to Link when he wears different masks, slowing down and enjoying the power of infinite time in a world in which nobody else has that luxury will let Link stumble upon context-dependent cutscenes which are only viewable in very specific scenarios, discover connections between people and places, and ultimately make him more powerful in his journey while providing players with a unique perspective.

This is how Majora’s Mask rewards those who thoroughly explore its world and how the game gives power and knowledge to players who start to become aware of the complex weaving of events and characters. Sure, one could blitz through all the dungeons, grumbling at the time constraints and wishing the game was more like Ocarina of Time, or one could spend carefully planned cycles exploring the world and improving Link’s efficiency, learning from mistakes and slowly gaining new items, new upgrades, new masks, and new techniques and ultimately becoming much better prepared for the dungeons.

Not a trace of Ganon to be found!

After players start spending cycle after cycle focused on just one or a few tasks, the game’s world suddenly falls into place. Link’s approach to mastery has to change from what he is used to. In fact, that is the point. Three days can feel so short at first, but this is an illusion. Majora’s Mask is a game that views time laterally, not linearly, and Termina, its characters, and its obstacles take on a new form with this realization.

After this change in focus, the time constraint in a dungeon now becomes a worthy challenge. After spending many cycles outside of dungeons, players will become acutely aware of what they are capable of during the span of one. A dungeon is not something to stumble upon and to slowly work out like in many other Zelda games, it is an opponent to conquer. Even if a player spends a whole cycle in a dungeon only to have to restart at the last second, he will have a much easier time after he shakes off the frustration of his defeat. Even if he did not gain the item he wanted, he has gained knowledge and more of a mastery over his environment.

Majora’s Mask reiterates this mentality by including stray fairy quests in the dungeons to provide a second level of mastery. Termina is not a place to see things once. Sure, it is a little annoying that the guard stops Link from leaving Clock Town every time he is in a new cycle, but it is worth it for those times after a long, involved cycle when a player feels like he made a significant difference only to remember that practically nobody else is aware of his efforts. Majora’s Mask is about seeing the same thing with new eyes and once the player has put in the time to understand it emotionally and not just intellectually is when the game is at its most rewarding.

One special thing about Majora’s Mask is that even when everything appears to be wrapped up in a nice little package, the game makes sure to point out that nothing is ever that clean cut. There will still be injustice. There will still be loss. There will still be madness. There will still be chaos. Our history is part of us; all of it. It is a game that makes its claims about the importance of forgiveness, empathy, and love against a backdrop of unsettling darkness and thus turns what would otherwise be sentiment into a balanced and nuanced thesis. The more Majora’s Mask is explored, the more it returns these themes to the player.

The Zora race’s cool factor takes a hit in this game.

In this vein and without spoiling the ending, the game’s credits make it clear which scenes are being missed because the player was not able or did not bother to obtain the necessary mask. Majora’s Mask is not only a great game to take the time to master, but it is a great game to revisit and replay with this newfound mastery.

None of this is to mention how fun it is to become familiar with all of Link’s various forms – from the eager, sad steps of the Deku Scrub to the proud and graceful swimming of Mikau – through mini-games and general exploration and how rewarding and entertaining it is to discover and follow all the stories that connect to each mask, no matter how trite or how complex.

However, the game is certainly not perfect. In addition to hiding its form from its players, it must be noted that while the nods to gameplay sections in Ocarina of Time fit thematically with both the narrative and mechanical structure of the game, it can still feel a little lazy and too reliant on Ocarina of Time. Also, while the Zelda series is excellent at creating great characters with rich histories and then knowing which details to provide and which to leave implicit or hidden, the incidental writing is standard video game below-average fare despite its sophisticated undercurrent. There is very good reason why Link does not talk and why there is extremely limited voice acting in the Zelda games: The series is always better when it remembers to show and not tell.

Also, while Majora’s Mask has a mostly wonderful soundtrack, there are some areas that disappointingly and unnecessarily reuse tracks from Ocarina of Time and that is not to mention that the Indigo-Go’s is definitely not the amazing band that the game tries to make them out to be. Expect some cringes surrounding those guys.

Majora’s Mask is a game that has an amazingly cohesive and complex inner logic and is an important, bold, and successful experiment in game design, but there is an important fact to clarify in the interest of consumer awareness. The feeling of losing progress, the illusion of the time constraint, and the constant repetition of events can be a very frustrating experience for new players or those who might have a difficult time breaking free from the Zelda formula mentality. Some will appreciate that Majora’s Mask lets players figure out its world and logic through failure, misunderstanding, reflection, and observation, but others might feel like jumping through the game’s hoops is not a worthy price of admission. Gamers must consider what sort of experiences they enjoy and understand that – while ported wonderfully to the handheld – Majora’s Mask is significantly larger than it appears and it is a game that takes time and patience to get to know. More than most games, Majora’s Mask is an experience that is best played away from the help of the internet and is definitely an experience that every devoted gamer should at least try, even if just to ultimately reject.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes. This review was based on the game played on 3DS XL hardware.

]]>http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/05/review-the-legend-of-zelda-majoras-mask-3d/feed/21Editorial: Tear Downhttp://lusipurr.com/2015/02/04/editorial-tear-down/
http://lusipurr.com/2015/02/04/editorial-tear-down/#commentsWed, 04 Feb 2015 17:00:19 +0000http://lusipurr.com/?p=12436This week, Mel tears down his favorites for fun and profit. Perhaps not for profit, but certainly for fun. Come join him in his quest to humble some of his most beloved titles.]]>

A game that only an imperfect person could love.

This week, I am going to do something a bit different, fine readers. Whereas in other articles I can be found coming to the defense of the various games I enjoy (the ones I drone on about all too often in this space), this week I will be turning the tables. I recognize that even my favorite games are not perfect, in fact many of them are deeply flawed. My top games of all time, should I be pressed to compose such a list, would probably include many niche titles that have cult followings. Among them some very popular titles with great renown could be found, no doubt, but even those games are not safe from being objectively bad in some regards. Join me this week as I take aim at my own heart, and tear down games I hold in high regard.

The Souls series is one of those popular games I mentioned, but it has its share of conceptual design flaws. For all the talk of how difficult these games are, it is more a question of bravely rolling behind an enemy and performing a back stab. The i-frames (invincibility frames) on the roll mechanic in this series have been tinkered with but remains quite exploitable in the most recent offering. And while I have shat upon Dark Souls 2 in the past, it shares this flaw with its predecessors as well as another damning flaw: replayability. In my experience, nothing beats the initial run through on these games. But play them again, and most of the fun is simply gone, or rather is being chased in an attempt to be reclaimed. New Game +, as some might point out, attempts to remedy the fact that enemy placements can (and will) be memorized, but the over powered nature of New Game + means these new threats are usually not enough to provide that same thrill. This is why, after finishing Dark Souls 2 for the first time, I simply put the disc away and moved on. It might be billed as otherwise, but if honesty prevails, the ride is only truly worth it once.

I know the Spencer Mansion like the back of my hand.

Likewise, the old (and new) Resident Evil series has received much acclaim throughout its lifetime before general opinion soured on it around the fifth numbered entry. Yet before this, there were many flaws worth counting in the old series that I have championed as survival horror at its best. Tank controls are, frankly, an acquired taste. Being comfortable with them is more of a learned skill than a preference, either the time has been put into learning it or it has not. The problem is this famous stumbling block does not need to be there, and even back in the days of Resident Evil 2 Capcom was attempting to appeal to the grievances by offering alternate movement schemes, none of which truly satisfy. While I cannot exactly say what could be done about these controls that would not involve reconstructing the game at its core, I do know that designing a game with controls that need to be overcome is not good design. Many were willing to overcome them, myself included, but the initial couple of hours genuinely had me thinking “maybe this game is not for me.” And I can easily see how that became a fatal flaw for other gamers.

My dear beloved Skies of Arcadia cannot be spared a mention here, and why should it when it is perhaps the most flawed game I will mention in this article? Huge facets of the game, from the encounter rate, the instant death spells, the easily missed ship upgrade opportunities that lead to near impossible encounters later on, the completely imbalanced item system that renders spells redundant, the rather simple linear equipment upgrade paths, they all form a very imperfect package. The overworld, while truly unique in many ways, can also be a slog at particular points when supplies are low and hunting for the selectable entrance point of a very visible city means more random encounters and almost dieing (Horteka!). The imperfect port job on the GameCube Legends version should also count here, with the very compressed sound and noticeable slowdown in parts, although I guess that beats an even higher encounter rate and fewer side quests on the Dreamcast version. And ship battles, while unique and interesting the first couple of times, are quite slow and leave a good deal of room for refinement.

The moon isn’t the only thing crashing into Termina.

Finally, I come to The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The game, as I played it in its original Nintendo 64 version (look for our review of the 3DS version soon!) held my interest initially from its association with Ocarina of Time. While others may have negative things to say about that game, Ocarina of Time had a good sense of pacing and direction, something Majora’s Mask does not. Due to the nature of the three day time system, many of the better more endearing elements of the game can go missed because they require extensive observation of the daily habits of wooden automatons. In the meantime the actual story is urging the player on, with this game’s version of Navi chiming in about how much time is left. The dungeons are well designed, but the matter of getting into the dungeons is often obscured by less than fun busy work. In an attempt to pad out the game time in the smallest Zelda game ever, many things take a lot of time to get into gear, which is a bit at odds with the game’s emphasis on limited time. Speaking of which, the mechanic to slow or speed time up is entirely unannounced for such a critical function. There may be something to be said for the player organically learning game elements, but this particular element was left a bit too off the beaten path. And without the benefit of slowing time down, the dungeons would become mad dashes and the bosses likely just out of reach of the time limit for a first time player. Many of the more profound elements of the game, such as the disempowerment of Link in the beginning or the general obstinacy of a game imposing strict time limits become meaningful only in retrospect. Once a certain grasp of the game is obtained, with no help from the game itself, the somber moods and eerie tension can be savored and appreciated as they should have been from the start.

Now join me, stout readers, and tell me about the flaws in the games you love. I have listed above the games or game series I enjoy the most, and still do despite their flaws, so I expect no less from you! Or do you only like perfect games? Hah! There is no such thing!